Chapter 1
Chapter 0: “The Kevin Jenkins Experience” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

By Hambone 20 / Jun / 2015


The first chapter of what would eventually become “The Deathworlders”, was posted on 4chan some years ago now, as a self-contained story.

At first I thought it had received some pleasant comments and then sank without a trace. It was only after Reddit user “Guidosbestfriend” set his own story “Humans Don’t Make Good Pets” in the same universe and I confessed to having created the setting that I learned that “The Kevin Jenkins Experience” was considered a HFY classic.

Surprising as this was, I then decided to write a sequel, and from there the clamor for more has picked me up and swept me along.

For those who are upset by the strongly antitheistic content of part 0.2, I implore you to power on through it. You may be pleasantly surprised by the resolution to that content.

-Hambone

Chapter 2
Chapter 01: “Run, Little Monster” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Terri Boone could feel the bass power cords begin to thump at her bones as she entered the bar and couldn’t resist the feral grin that forced its way onto her face - it was exactly her kind of song.

For that matter, Afterburner was exactly her kind of bar. Affordable drinks, an Internet jukebox plugged straight into a set of speakers with the volume turned up full, three pool tables, a dartboard, and a couple of huge TV screens turned permanently to a sports channel. Right now, inaudible commentators were enthusing about the night’s upcoming game between the Vancouver Canucks and the Arizona Coyotes. If she didn’t live halfway across the country, she could have seen herself becoming a regular here.

She knew the man she was after by description and it didn’t take long to see him working the bar, jawing with the regulars as he opened a couple of bottles and handed them over. Browned skin, full beard, a cross tattooed on his right forearm and a curious bald patch just forward of his left temple, that was her guy alright.

She slid up into a bar stool as the patrons vacated it and was treated to a warm grin.

“Not seen you in here before darling.” He said, floating his voice over the rampaging music with practised ease. “What can I get you?”

“I’ll have a Bud, please.” she called back, fishing out a bill from her purse. “Hey, is your name Kevin Jenkins?”

“Ah.” He grinned as he retrieved the bottle from its fridge and uncapped it. “Should have known. You’re here for my alien story.”

“You get that a lot?”

“Got to be at least fifteen nutjobs in here a month asking me about it and telling me about the thing they built in their garage so they can get in touch with the mothership.” Jenkins said, swapping her bills for change.

“So you claim to be an alien abductee but think others who claim that are nutjobs?” she sipped her beer.

“Oh yeah. You can always tell the bullshitters who’ve convinced themselves they got taken from the ones who really did.” Jenkins replied. “The real abductees don’t want to go back.”

+++

The Brood had no music, nor did they need to shout. They were perfectly capable of vocalizing, but that clumsy mechanism was reserved only for speaking with other Broods. Within each Brood, the intimate cybernetic wiring that allowed full thoughts to be sent in their entirety had made language entirely redundant.

One said: +<trepidation; question> the watchful Prey have not seen us?+

Another said: +<confidence; statement> They have not. <sneering> Nor have the beast prey.+

This provoked a wave of amusement that circled around the entire Brood. By their standards, the wry assumption that a non-sentient Prey species could hope to detect a cloaked Hunter vessel was the height of humour.

The youngest said: +<fear; query> The Prey are a death world species. We saw what just one of them did to the Brood of Five Poisons. Respectfully, Alpha, are we sure that all of our Brood shall return from this hunt?+

Alpha said: +<Impatience; terse rebuke; instruction> If you fear them so, you may remain aboard the transport.+

It - their species did not reproduce in a gendered manner analogous to male and female - addressed the remainder as the youngling radiated sullen apology. +<inspiring reminder> We are the Hunters, they are the prey. Death planet or not, we will have the technological advantage and surprise. An ambushed prey is meat in the maw. Our cousin-Broods will remember our triumph as we return with trophies from this formidable prey, they will know our courage and our skill. And for the prey, they will know their place in the order of things.+

It turned to the one that operated their ship’s electronic warfare suite. +<Query> Do you have an appropriately high-profile target?+

That one replied +<statement> I do, Alpha. Their whole species will witness our hunt.

The Brood vocalised as one for the first time, expressing their approval. The hunt was on.

+++

“I’ll be honest, I don’t believe a word of it.” Terri told him.

“I don’t blame you.” Jenkins said. “But, look at this.” He leaned forward and turned his head so that she could inspect the bald patch on the left side of his head. Up close, it was an intricate web of fine white scars that produced a pattern which looked disturbingly like circuitry.

“That’s where those grey fuckers shoved an experimental translation implant into me.” Jenkins said. “It worked, but the doctors who took it out of me said it was a pretty damn crude one.”

“These would be alien doctors.” Terri said. She had to admit, the scars were compelling evidence, but she was a natural skeptic. It went with the job.

“Yep. See they greys - “Corti” is the pronunciation used by species that have mouths which work kind of like ours - apparently they had this big eugenics program and turned themselves into a civilization of immoral scientists. They abduct pre-contact species, figure out how we tick, and use that data to corner the market in translation implants and other biotech when we make first contact. Real assholes. Most of the others are pretty cool though.”

He thought about this. “Actually, some of them are as dumb as a bag of beans. There’s one species, look kinda like six-limbed giraffes with blue stripes. Those guys are about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. But most of the critters out there are cool.”

Terri waggled her empty bottle by way of asking for a replacement “So if they’re mostly pretty cool, why wouldn’t anybody want to go back out there? Flying among the stars and all that sounds pretty fun.”

“It will be, when we’re out there.” Jenkins said, grabbing a replacement. “But for now, because we haven’t invented FTL travel, we’re legally considered to be non-sentient fauna rather than intelligent people. Even when there are trade ships out there captained by beings who’ve got all the brains of biscuits and gravy by our standards.”

“Why the interest, anyway?” He asked her, all of a sudden.

“I’m a private investigator.” She replied. “My client’s paying me a lot to travel the whole country looking for what he called ‘genuine’ abductees.”

“Do I fit the bill?” Jenkins asked.

She truthfully told him that she didn’t know - her client had only asked me to hunt down people who weren’t obvious crazies. He’d taken her to a UFO convention in New Mexico, gestured to the whole room and said ’Ms. Boone, this is the kind of people you’re not trying to find for me.’

It was a pretty nebulous description, but the client’s generous travel budget and seemingly limitless ability to keep up with her fees had kept Terri happy and comfortable on a road trip all over the USA for the best part of half a year, and if it meant she got to drink in exactly the right kind of bar interviewing a bartender who - she had to confess - was exactly the right kind of rugged sexy, then those were the kind of contracts she had dreamed of when she became a P. I.

“I guess he didn’t want me accidentally giving away what kind of answer I was looking for.” she finished. “If it helps though, I don’t think you’re crazy. More… bitter about something.”

Jenkins laughed. “Yeah, Kirk said pretty much the same thing”.

“Kirk?”

“Oh yeah. The coolest guy out there. His species has a language that sounds like ball-bearings in a blender, but the first syllable of his name sounds a bit like “Kirk”, you know, like from Star Trek? So that’s what I called him. He told me a few weeks before I came back to Earth that I seemed bitter about something.”

“Was he right?” Terry asked.

“Could be. See, there’s this species called…”

"What the fuck?! Hey Jenks, are you seeing this shit?!"

+++

With nary a ripple of displaced air, the Hunter raiding vessel slipped down into planetary atmosphere. Unnoticed by even the most sophisticated surveillance and interception network on the planet, it sashayed through cloud and current until it found its destination - a city of gleaming steel-and- glass towers on the banks of an inland sea, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. It settled above a dome-roofed building that nestled squat and low among the skyscrapers, causing some minor static in the transmissions coming from within, which were quickly compensated for by the small army of technicians who kept the broadcast going out all over the world.

+<Query; intrigued> Combat trials, perhaps? Ritualized training to do battle in cold-weather conditions?+

+<Terse; impatient> We are not anthropologists! Brace yourself, siblings. We drop in a full hand of pulses.+

+<Eager; aggressive> Meat to the maw!+

The traditional hunting cry reverberated in silence among their collective minds, and then their boarding torpedoes erected their stasis fields, keeping any and all external forces from doing anything to their occupants. When they opened again a subjective non-event later, they had been fired through the roof of the Rogers Arena and each stood upright in a bullseye of cracked ice.

As one, the Brood stepped out of their assault torpedoes, spun up their heavy Kinetic Pulse guns, and opened fire indiscriminately into the stunned players, officials and spectators.

+++

“Shit! Oh my god those poor people!”

The music had been shut off, and the sound of the sports channel turned up. The commentators were going delirious trying to describe the sight of an alien attack right in front of their eyes. Terri’s hand was across her mouth in a shocked reflex, watching them viciously lay into a mass of humanity that had, up until mere seconds earlier, been completely unaware of their existence.

“Hunters.” Jenkins said. He did so quietly, but everybody nearby suddenly glanced at him. Alone of everybody in the bar, he was the only one not apparently appalled by the sight. Instead, he had an expression of savage anticipation.

“Oh, y’all believe me now?” he asked. “Yep, those are the hunters I told you about. The ones I - me, your barkeep - personally beat the fuck to death with my own bare hands.”

His grin broadened. “And the stupid bastards made the mistake of raiding a hockey game? This, boys and girls, is going to be fucking funny.”

+++

Alpha stepped from its assault pod and fired directly into the chest of the first Prey it saw - one of the armoured ones on the ice. Instantly, the Prey’s bewildered stillness gave way to the panic that all Prey fell victim to when the Hunters arrived. Many emitted high-pitched squeals of alarm, many more stampeded to escape. Around it, the Brood stepped onto the ice and launched Kinetic bolts at anything that moved.

Each shot knocked Prey flying, and Alpha felt a savage surge of pride. Their Brood would gain much respect for taking on death planet predators and scattering them like any other herd. Alpha could imagine the praise songs and taste the honour-feast already.

And then the Prey it had shot stood up.

+++

“See, they have this planetary classification system for temperate worlds like ours.” Jenkins said amiably, as on the screen one of the players hauled himself back up onto his skates, clearly a bit winded but otherwise no worse than if he’d taken a hard body-check from one of the Arizonan players.

“Category one is, like, the Garden of Eden. You could drop any species in the galaxy down there completely buck bare and they’d be happy as Larry for the rest of their lives.” he continued, as Canucks and Coyotes players helped one another to their feet. Alien though their body language was, everybody could see the alarm and surprise the Hunters were feeling as every single one of the humans they had shot turned out to be not only alive, but angry.

“Most planets are like, a four to six or so. You don’t want to get caught in the rain and you’ll need to work for your food, but generally it’s pretty easy living on those worlds.”

The aliens fired again, punching the players off their feet again.

“Anything above Class ten is considered a deathworld.” Jenkins continued as, yet again, the players got back up, and this time they started skating around the invading aliens, which formed a defensive corral and began to fire wildly at the circling sportsmen. It quickly became apparent that their reflexes and aim were remarkably sluggish and that the circling skaters were just too fast to hit. Shot after shot splashed harmlessly on the plexiglass.

At first, the people behind the barrier cowered, but that plexiglass was rated to a much, MUCH higher resilience than even the heaviest Kinetic Pulse fire. It didn’t take long for the cowering fans to realise this, and begin to chant: “Kick their ass! Kick their ass!”

Jenkins went on, raising his voice slightly above the swelling, bloodthirsty chant. “Deathworlds have things like high gravity, poisonous plants and critters, lots of carnivores, nasty little microorganisms, natural disasters like earthquakes or volcanoes, acid rain, high background radiation, stuff like that. Like I said, a deathworld is everything Class Ten or above, and anything that evolves there is supposed to be really goddamn dangerous.”

By now on TV, the crowd were roaring at full volume: “KICK THEIR ASS! KICK THEIR ASS!”

+++

Alpha brodcast: <Shock; dismay; terror; disbelief; shame>

Then one of the Prey hurtled towards it, at speeds that simply defied understanding.

The last thing it ever broadcast was: <PAIN!>

+++

Most eyes in the bar closed and turned away from the carnage on the ice in disgust. Terri Boone watched out of morbid fascination. It seemed impossible that things which looked so menacing might break so easily.

Kevin Jenkins opened a beer for himself.

“Earth,” he said, with vicious satisfaction. “Is a Class Twelve.”

Chapter 3
Chapter 02: “Aftermath” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

“I’ll spare you as much of the jargon as I can, eh?”

Not for the first time, General Martin Tremblay was struck by the youth of the scientists working on this project. If it had been up to him, the whole thing would have been as hush-hush as possible, locked up behind layer after layer of need-to-know statuses and classified stamps. But, his way had to play second fiddle to the reality of aliens on live sports news, right here in British Columbia. When he’d delegated the task of bringing in biologists, physicists and engineers from across the globe to one of his staff, he hadn’t quite anticipated that she would opt for a team that was practically fresh from their doctorates.

Oh, sure, there were plenty of grey hairs around, but Tremblay was feeling decidedly venerable surrounded by all this buzzing enthusiastic youthfulness.

“I’d appreciate that. Let’s get to the meat.”

He regretted the turn of phrase immediately as the biologist - a rotund and jovial man with a habit of roaring with laughter at the slightest joke, deliberate or not - released his characteristic chuckle and then turned to the report, which was mercifully brief.

“From what we were able to scrape off the ice in Vancouver after the hockey teams were done with them, they’re… kind of unimpressive, actually.” he opined. “The endoskeleton seems to be based around comparatively large crystals of silica, with not a trace of collagen in sight. Remarkably fragile. Musculature is… we think their muscles can pull, push and twist, where ours can only pull, so they need fewer muscles overall to get the same range of motion, but each muscle’s far weaker than our own - the samples we have, bruised and crushed as they were, had a tensile strength about that of smoked salmon. Even accounting for tissue damage, they’re decidedly weaker than we are, and they couldn’t possibly move as fast as we can. Just not enough force or leverage.”

“That explains why they broke so easily.” Tremblay said.

Dr. Taylor nodded. “It’s weird, it’s like their whole physiology never evolved to deal with even a fraction of the daily challenges ours did. I mean, there’s a lot we can’t test given how badly damaged all the specimens were but what we DO have says that an average guy could probably rip the arms off these things if he tried.”

“So what the hell did they think they were going to accomplish?” Tremblay said. “Interesting as this is, my job is to figure out what kind of a threat they pose, and to do that I need more than an analysis about how squishy they are. I could see that just from watching the game.”

Taylor’s colleague, Dr. Betty-Anne Cote, cleared her throat at that one. She tended to let Taylor do the talking - he was the kind of large personality who filled a room, while she was more the ‘quietly get things done while nobody’s watching’ type. They complemented each other well, not least because when she did venture an opinion, Taylor tended to shut up and let her share it.

“We’re, like, the only people on the planet who could claim to be experts in xenopsychology” she said, though unbeknownst to everyone in the room she was completely wrong. “So we’re starting from scratch. And I guess the first assumption we have to make is that, to them, their physical frailty would be normal, and we’d seem freakishly strong and durable.”

“It would explain the weaponry.” Taylor commented. “You’ve seen the interview tapes?”

Tremblay indicated that he had. All of the athletes had given a roughly similar description of what it felt like to be shot with an alien gun - pathetic. While the shots had knocked them off their feet, to a seasoned hockey player in full gear the impacts had been little worse than irritating. The goaltenders had felt hardly anything at all.

Careful testing had suggested that the guns delivered, by some as-yet unidentified mechanism, a discharge of kinetic energy that propagated along the direction of fire at the speed of light. The weapons had plenty of advantages - they were portable, agile, had no recoil at all, and seemed to convert their stored energy very efficiently, but they stood no hope at all of seriously threatening a well-conditioned soldier in full battle gear.

“If we assume that the average target for those weapons is about as tough as the idiots who landed in Vancouver, then those weapons start to make sense.” Dr. Cote told him.

"Merde." Tremblay pinched the bridge of his nose. “I really don’t want to go to NATO and the Commonwealth with a report to the effect that these things pose about as much threat as an angry twelve-year-old.” he said.

“Well, from what we’ve gathered so far, sir, that would be the truth.” Taylor shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’d prefer to give a report to the effect that we’re hopelessly outmatched and can kiss our collective derrieres goodbye?"

“Well, no. It’s just a bit…. anticlimactic.” Tremblay said.

As she returned to her work, Betty Cote muttered a heartfelt “Amen to that.”

++

+++

“Dumbasses.”

That insult woke Terri Boone up, and she sat up straighter and adusted her seatbelt, embarrassed to find that she had fallen asleep. It took her a few seconds to get up to speed, but the target of the insult turned out to be obvious - a mass of people filling the road, waving signs and chanting. Most of the signs showed variants on the theme of alien faces, most the classic large-eyed Roswell green or grey cueball, some actual cartoon versions of the things - Hunters - that had attacked Vancouver, one or two of the sleek black aliens fought by Sigourney Weaver and, in one case, an ET puppet impaled atop a steel pole in a way that implied he’d never be phoning anybody at all.

Between the car’s air conditioning, the impatient traffic and the general disorganised noise of protestors not getting the timing quite right on their chant, it was hard to tell what, exactly, their protest was about, other than that they apparently disapproved of extraterrestrial life in general, and wanted somebody to do something about it. A few wags had infiltrated the crowd with signs like “down with this sort of thing” and “DER TERK ER JERBS”, and the police were fighting an uphill battle just to keep the whole situation relatively peaceful and respectful, never mind the task of trying to disperse the mob and restore something that resembled normalcy.

As if there was any such thing now that the world had conclusive proof of the existence of intelligent alien life, and hostile alien life at that.

She reached over and turned down the radio, where some self-appointed authority was bemoaning the way that the alien vehicle had fled into space and vanished in a burst of Cherenkov radiation, and was insisting that the Royal Canadian Air Force had “screwed the pooch” by failing to intercept, ground and study it. His guest’s patient attempts to explain that the vehicle in question had gone from a standing start to Mach 5, meaning that interception would have been completely impossible, were being dodged, mocked, or outright ignored.

It was the third time in one week they had encountered a mob of some kind, brandishing signs either welcoming the aliens to Earth, or expressing unspecified antagonism towards them. Kevin Jenkins reserved tolerant disdain for the former, and naked contempt for the latter. For her part, Terri still wasn’t sure she believed his story, but if it was true, she thought she could sense why he might react so strongly. After all, the first group were just naive airheads. The latter compounded that crime with prejudice, and prejudice seemed to really irritate Jenkins.

He claimed that reflex was largely due to the year and a half he had spent vagrant in the galaxy, surrounded by weird and varied alien species and lacking the basic rights that protected any of them. He had been on the receiving end of quite a lot of prejudice himself. Terri suspected that he was being a little unkind to interstellar society - being mixed-race, he’d undoubtedly suffered the same on Earth, albeit with the law on his side. Sure, being treated legally and officially as a non-sentient animal probably hadn’t been great for his esteem, but the bitterness with which he spoke of his experience didn’t quite gel with the fact that they had practically bent over backwards to get him home in the end.

“Are we there yet?” she asked. He shook his head and glanced at the car’s GPS.

“This is Columbus.” He told her. “It’s about thirty miles to Shelbyville.”

She examined the map on her phone and frowned. “Why did we leave the Interstate?”

“I’m hungry.” he replied, and her own stomach voiced vigorous agreement with that sentiment. He took the first opportunity as the protest moved on to pull over, into a strip mall where they ordered a Domino’s and watched the sea of banners meander out of sight at about the same speed as their pizza crawled through the oven.

Terri was famished: she inhaled her five slices before Jenkins had finished his third, and was only saved from the temptation of stealing a sixth when he ordered some sides for her. She had to admit, he was a good travelling companion - paid his share of the gas, took more than his fair share of time behind the wheel, had a knack for finding the least terrible radio station in any given area, and mostly left her alone with her thoughts.

She was beginning to realise, however, that despite these qualities, and as attractive as he was, she didn’t actually like him very much. He was a little too… intense. He was at once both detached and too focused, as if whatever he might be doing or discussing was an unwelcome distraction from some more important business, to be given his full attention and dealt with swiftly and efficiently, minimizing the time until he could return that attention to where it belonged.

He was terse, both choleric and melancholic, self-confident to the point of arrogance, and had a particularly annoying habit of passing disparaging commentary on (or at least frowning at) pretty much every church sign they passed which, this being Indiana, happened about once every minute or so. Terri, being Catholic, had quickly had to master the art of diplomatic silence.

She drove the remaining half hour to Shelbyville, with Jenkins lounging silently in the passenger seat, sketching or writing - she couldn’t tell which

• with cheap K-Mart stationery held against his raised knee. Occasionally he would pull out his cellphone and consult it.

Terri hadn’t become a Private Investigator out of a shortage of curiosity, and her resolve finally wore out as they drove past the water tower at the edge of town.

“What’re you working on, anyway?”

He glanced up, apparently surprised as if he had totally forgotten about her, then seemed to collect himself and showed her a few pages of sketchbook. The drawings were angular and rough, clearly the work of an amateur, but also both recognisably non-human and recognisably plausible life-forms.

He tapped one which appeared to have a prosthetic limb. “That’s Kirk.” he said.

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask about that. Kirk?”

“His name sounds like a rock stuck in a garbage disposal.” Jenkins said. “But the first syllable sounds a bit like ‘Kirk’.”

“Does he hang out with-” she began.

“Dammit, I don’t want to hear the Spock joke again!”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few seconds, and then he regained his composure.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”

“I understand, you’ve heard it too many times. It’s okay.”

“That ain’t it. I’m just… on edge.”

They turned onto a residential street and Terr quickly saw the address they were after - a little brown house with a little white porch and a ubiquitous stars-and-stripes hanging limp on a flagpole in the garden.

“Why?” she asked him as she parked. “You’re, like, the only person I’ve even heard of who seems to have a real handle on things now that the whole world’s gone alien-crazy.”

“Yeah. And I don’t like it.” he said, unbuckling his seatbelt.

She followed him out of the car. “What’s not to like?” She asked. He shrugged.

“Call me crazy, but it just don’t seem right that anybody could “have a handle” on something this big, least of all a dumbass like me, you know?”

She wanted to reassure him that he wasn’t a ‘dumbass’. It would have been sincere, too - Jenkins was disparaging about his own intelligence, but she’d quickly seen that he had a frankly incredible memory, which in her book counted for a lot, intelligence-wise. But the door opened before she could say it.

She’d seen a picture of the woman they were there to meet - early 30s, average height, and a slightly unusual hairstyle, which started as a long angular bang swept just away from her right eye and got progressively shorter around her head until the hair at her left temple was all but nonexistent. She had tired eyes and a general air of weariness about her, though the infant she was cradling on her arm and hip probably had much to do with that.

“Mrs. Naylor?” Terri asked, receiving a tiny wary nod by way of confirmation. She extended her hand. “I’m Terri Boone, we spoke by email.”

“Right, yeah. The investigator.” Mrs. Naylor shook the hand, hoisting her son up onto her hip a little as he chewed on a fist and stared at the strangers.

“May we come in?” Terri asked her. Naylor shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said “but I’m getting real sick and tired of people asking me questions. Seems like every idiot UFO hunter in the midwest wants to hear my… Oh, sweet baby Jesus Christ, you’re for real.”

Terri followed Mrs. Naylor’s gaze over her shoulder. Kevin Jenkins was holding up his sketchpad to show off a menagerie of alien life. Mrs Naylor stared at it slack-jawed for a second, and then seemed to wake up a bit. Her parental fatigue practically evaporated off her face even as Terri watched, and she stood up a little straighter.

“You’d better come in.” she said. “And you can call me Hazel.”

++

++

Martin Tremblay was used to phone calls waking him up at odd hours of the night. His partner Stefan just slept through them nowadays, not even rolling over or reacting to the phone in any way. Phone calls for Martin were just part of the bedroom nighttime noise.

“Tremblay.” He answered, digging rheum out of the corners of his eyes so that he could focus on the alarm clock and then rubbing his stubble. 05:23. At least he’d got six hours.

"General, it’s Major Bartlett here, sir. The US have got something for us."

“Something?”

"Apparently NASA was fed an anonymous tip a couple of days back. Seems there’s some kind of an… object orbiting Saturn that shouldn’t be there, sir."

“Two days ago? What kind of an object?”

"They had Cassini take a look at it, and apparently that takes a while, sir. As for what it is… best guess is that it might be a space station of some kind."

“…I’ll come right in.”

Shaving, showering, dressing, grabbing a travel coffee and securing a mumbled, sleeping farewell from Stefan were skills he’d honed throughout his career, and he drove on empty roads through pre-dawn darkness listening to AC/DC to help the coffee wake him up. By the time he’d cleared security at the base and reached the briefing, he was sharp and alert.

He didn’t even bother with the formalities. “Brief me.”

To his credit. Bartlett didn’t miss a beat, and just slapped a brown-covered folder stamped “CLASSIFIED” down onto the table. “On Tuesday, thirty hours after the incident in Vancouver, NASA receive an anonymous message delivered straight to Administrator’s office, apparently from inside the Agency. The message detailed coordinates in orbit around the planet Saturn, directly opposite the planet from Earth and therefore invisible from here. We’ve not been informed what, exactly, was in that message that convinced the Administrator to order that it be taken seriously and investigated, but at oh- two-hundred UST yesterday they got…” He tugged a mostly-black square out of the folder “…this image back from the Cassini probe.”

Tremblay examined the picture. The object was either very large or very distant, and so the probe’s cameras hadn’t taken a particularly sharp image, but it was hard to deny that, between a high albedo that looked an awful lot like steel panels and a hint of its shape - a cigar wearing three thin rings - it looked decidedly artificial.

“Cassini’s been up there since…?”

“Launched in ninety-seven, made orbit on July First, two thousand four, sir.”

“It’s been out there that long and never spotted this thing?” Asked one of the other officers, Colonel Williams.

“It’s a big sky, sir.” Bartlett told him. “And no offense to the NASA guys, but it’s an old camera, too. They had to point right at these coordinates to see it.”

“Besides.” Tremblay added “We don’t know how long that thing’s been there. For all we know, it was only built last week.”

“Fair enough.” Williams conceded. “But what are we going to do about about it?”

“What CAN we do?” Tremlay countered. “It took seven years for Cassini to get out there. We send a mission, they aren’t coming home until their babies are going through puberty. We send a missile, even if we had a missile that can get out there, they’ll see it coming years in advance. We’ve already got a robot probe out there but it belongs to somebody else.” he shrugged. “We’re being watched. And I’ll be honest, that fact doesn’t bother me too much.”

“Why not?”

“Well, A: it means that we’re worth watching, which is flattering. But more importantly, it means B: that the psychos who hit Vancouver aren’t the only life out there.”

Bartlett frowned. “How do you figure that, sir?”

“Because if that was their listening post, gentlemen, then they’d have been better prepared.”

There was a general nodding and a few grins. Much as it had turned the world upside-down, watching the alien raiders get their laser-guided karma had been inspiring.

Bartlett cleared his throat. “And C, sir:”

“Yes?”

“We now know faster-than-light travel is possible.”

++

“Councillor?”

‘Kirk’ raised his head. He had taken to napping in his office chair at every available opportunity - it was the only way to keep up with the amount of sleep he required. The Hunters slipping the quarantine net around Earth had become a major diplomatic incident, as much because of the questions about how the humans would respond, as because it showed just how far their stealth technology had come. Stations, fleets and facilities all over the galaxy were rushing to deal with that latter problem, but within the halls of power, the fact that the humans now officially knew there was something out there had rapidly become the cause of greater alarm.

His aide, a Vzk’tk by the name of Rkrrnb, indicated that, within the sea of messages and information screens floating in the volumetric projection above his desk, one was blinking red in a steady one-two-three-pause-one-two-three- pause rhythm, indicating an internal message from somewhere on the Observatory, highest priority.

He thanked the young being with a wave of his prosthetic upperarm, while the remaining organic one grabbed the message and performed the interface gesture to open it.

He swore, making a sound rather like a plastic bucket full of bubblewrap being crushed by a backhoe.

The image was of the human research probe “Cassini”, which had been left intact on the grounds that its destruction might arouse suspicion.

Its largest camera was pointing directly at them.

He stared at it for a few long seconds, and then tapped a few physical controls on the desk. Rkrrnb retreated from the room as it began to erect a top-level diplomatic secrecy field. The volumetric display on his desk didn’t need long to begin filling up with the floating heads of his counterparts. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing, if an emergency session of the security council was called, you answered. Within minutes, the limited AI that served as the council’s speaker and impartial mediator called the session to order, and granted him the floor.

“We’ve been discovered.” he said.

Chapter 4
Chapter 03: “An Eventful Month” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

It had been an eventful month, and an expensive one. Between the gasoline, motels, food and occasional laundrette, parking charges, and one or two fines, Terri Boone’s one-woman trip from California to Texas had become a convoy of driven individuals across the whole of the mainland US. They had everyone - a harassed single mother who’d left her kids with their grandparents for the duration, an older couple in a Winnebago, three teenagers from New York, a Romani woman from Ohio, a quiet guy from Birmingham whose battered olive-green windbreaker seemed to contain an infinite supply of cigarettes, a trucker who had been born in the UK, a construction worker from Florida, an Arizona state trooper.

She felt like something of an outsider. Every night, no matter where they stopped - motel, parking lot, truck stop, wherever - the Abductees always took some time to talk, to share their experience, and if Terri hadn’t believed them before, the way their stories all corroborated one another soon dispelled any doubt. Hazel Naylor had turned out to be a better artist than Kevin Jenkins, and was bus providing the artwork for a dossier on alien life that he was compiling out of all of their accounts. It was already remarkably thick.

It was also… discomforting. Terri had taken the opportunity to flip through it one day as Jenkins drove at the head of the convoy, leading them to meet their next Abductee in Colorado. The life it displayed came in a bewildering variety. Small, skinny, large-eyed aliens with pointed ears who were clearly the inspiration for both the Roswell Greys and, she suspected, even older legends about elves. Tall, gangly, long-necked aliens which apparently came in two varieties--one with four legs and two arms, one with six and four. There were three-eyed aliens which one Abductee had aptly named “Cthulhu-sheep” who walked on their long fingertips and who apparently sounded like pigeons speaking Welsh. There were three-fingered humanoids three times as tall as homo sapiens with huge ears the size of mixing bowls, who dripped with jewelery and lavish but scandalously revealing clothing.

There were huge brutish-looking humanoid ogres with four arms who apparently built wondrous cities from spun glass and polished, any one of which was beautiful enough to make a tourist weep. There was a species that would have seemed vaguely insectoid if not for the feathers and who apparently acid- etched their tribal markings into the chitin of their foreheads. One lifeform, and Hazel insisted the depiction was accurate, looked like nothing more than a flat, meaty worm in a square and ponderous-looking robot suit.

There were enormous shaggy-furred aliens with disproportionately small heads that looked like a cuttlefish with floppy bunny ears, aliens which looked like a bizarre cross between a reptile and an ant, the things that had attacked Vancouver, seven-eyed ugly monstrosities where you couldn’t tell where the flesh ended and their cybernetics began.

There were sketches of non-sophont alien life, too. Round little rat-things which were kind of cute if you didn’t look at the face. scuttling ceiling- runners that seemed to combine the best properties of a squirrel and a centipede, loping dog-like things which one Abductee swore had evolved to graze on bushes that could run away. A cat, a perfectly ordinary house cat sitting prim, sleek and contemptuous in the middle of a menagerie of hexapedal, septapedal, decapedal, betentacled and limbless pets and fauna. One Abductee even claimed that there were actual honest-to-God dragons out there, though everybody was a little too skeptical to include that one in the folio.

With the exception of the non-sentient fauna, they all had one thing in common

• next to the reference human drawn on the same page, they all seemed tall, or at least slender and gracile. Speculation among the Abductees was that humanity was so comparatively small because if you grow up in a high-gravity world of course you would be small and sturdy.

There were illustrations of alien technology. Variants on the theme of rifle - the Abductees called them “Kinetic Pulse Guns” - which looked melted and useless until they were sketched in the hands of various races, at which point, while still recognizably being the same object, they had deformed and stretched into an appropriate shape for each one. There was a note at the bottom of that page: “We aren’t in their database.”

There were alien starships in design ranging from the sleek and aesthetic to the square and functional, complete with sketchy but technical descriptions of their role and capacity, and provisional names. A light police gunboat was included for scale on the next page alongside an orbit-to-ground military dropship, a boxy affair which was pretty much nothing but steel, engines and arcane equipment which had been tentatively identified as “inertial compensation”. That in turn served for scale next to a light transport vehicle, which served as scale for the heavy bulk transport - a narrow spine flanked by ten huge boxy cargo bays each big enough to contain several shipping containers- and then that provided a scale reference for…

The Observatory. Those who had been there claimed it orbited Saturn, forever hidden from Earth’s direct view. They noted the module on the end of an arm that its builders had graciously tacked on to give human visitors an environment at Earth’s surface gravity and atmosphere. They noted that the station itself had only point-defence weaponry to defend itself from the risk of Hunter raids, and no other military equipment whatsoever. It had its own FTL “jump” system, which allowed it to hop instantly to the site of an appropriate beacon, though the beacon itself had to be carried by another ship at ordinary FTL speeds.

They had taken the time to Xerox a few copies in one town, and now all they needed to do to ascertain whether an Abductee was real or not was hand over the booklet. It was uncomfortable too look back at the long line of cars, trucks, campers and even the occasional big rig that they’d acquired and understand that, by the evidence of it, all these people really HAD been taken by alien beings. Their stories all meshed, with all the seamless reality as if the same number of people had all been on vacation to London - there was just too much for even this many to have experienced it all, and everyone added something new, but the essentials were all identical.

She wasn’t clear what the objective of their little pilgrimage was - it just seemed to be snowballing into this quest to personally check every single person in the USA who claimed to be an abductee and to add as much detail as they could, and it swept them up as it passed. Only a handful so far hadn’t promptly thrown together a suitcase, grabbed their car keys, made a few phone calls and put their lives on hold.

She wondered where it would end.

++

++

It had been an eventful month, and a hectic one. A whole new facility was under construction, about halfway between Vancouver and Calgary, among the trees of a previously unheeded little town called Scotch Creek, and all of the alien specimens recovered from Rogers Arena had been transported up there in a military convoy under incredibly heavy guard just as soon as there’d been a cold locker for the bodies and enough crates for the technology.

The plumbing hadn’t even been working on base when General Martin Tremblay had first set foot in Scotch Creek, and he’d been distracted the whole way up by what had bordered on being an argument with Stefan the night before he left about the sudden change of life. It wasn’t drastically long-distance, but it did mean that they wouldn’t see each other every night. Stefan had not taken that well, but he’d been with Martin long enough to keep a level head and work through it rather than throw a tantrum and storm out.

Now, Tremblay took a deep breath and looked around the bare-plaster walls of his unfinished office, for lack of something better to do while an IT technician worked on getting his desktop hooked into the base network. The whole thing was an exercise in throwing together a working facility as quickly as possible. Scientists had to excuse and apologise their way past men on ladders installing the lighting or wiring the computer network in a building where they hadn’t even finished pouring the concrete on the third floor. Meetings with the physicists became meetings with the architects and builders, became meetings with his superiors, became a phone call to the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister, became a sandwich and coffee with Bartlett as he received a sitrep on NASA’s unfolding mission to investigate the alien station around Saturn, became a meeting with the plumbers, became… and so on. It was nice to get a moment of calm and quiet, even if that moment did involve waiting awkwardly for somebody to finish installing some programs he could probably have installed himself.

There was a knock on the door. One of the physicists, Captain Claude Nadeau, saluted him. “we’ve had a development with the alien weaponry, sir, and we’d like to demonstrate.” he said.

So much for quiet moments. Tremblay stood up and joined him, and they wove between stepladders, toolboxes, cables and busy workers to the firing range which, being the least sophisticated room in the whole building, had long since been finished.

There was a pig carcass hanging at one end, and some technicians fussing around both an alien weapon and, next to it, a tangle of wires, components and bits that looked so experimental that it might catch fire.

“Okay. why the pig?” He asked.

“Pigs make a good human analogue.” Nadeau explained. “They’re pretty similar to us in terms of density and composition.”

“Okay…?” Tremblay gestured for him to continue.

“Right. So, um… alien gun. You know about these already but we’ve just got it here for demonstration purposes. if we fire it…” he turned and shouted: “clear downrange?!”

“Clear!”

Nadeau nodded, and then clicked on something on the laptop that had been wired into the gun. It discharged with its characteristic "thwoomp!" and the pig jerked on its chain as if punched. Tremblay had seen it before, and it was equally unimpressive now.

“Okay…?” he repeated.

“and now we fire the prototype.” Nadeau said, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. He turned to the laptop again.

“Proto-?”

THWOOOMB!!

A slurry of liquified meat and red, wet bone shards slapped all over the banked sand against the back wall of the range. There was a pop and sizzle from the box of electronics, and one of the technicians hastily trained a CO2 fire extinguisher on it.

Nadeau was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “More power!” he exclaimed, quoting an old TV series.

“That’s… Impressive. Okay. So we know those things can get powerful enough to kill us, then.” Tremblay said, and cleared his throat. Nadeau sobered somewhat.

“Well… yes.” he conceded. “But there are a few snags. That rack over there…” he pointed at a van-sized structure against one wall, which was plugged into a generator in the corner, and connected to the prototype weapon via a wrist- thick black cable. “…is a buttload of supercapacitors. We’re still working on reverse-engineering the alien capacitors from the gun we took apart, and we think those are likely to be a couple of orders of magnitude more efficient per kilogram than ours. But even if we get the capacitors figured out, that’s only half the job.”

“Not enough power to feed them?” Tremblay asked.

“That’s the second snag, yeah. Try as we might we haven’t even begun to understand how the generators inside these guns work. We’ve built what we think are exact replicas but when we try to turn them on they either do nothing, melt, or explode. Once we’ve cracked those…"

The captain shrugged. “But for now it takes us half an hour on that-" he indicated the generator in the corner - “to charge up for a pulse that’d even hurt. We had to charge it all night to prepare for this demonstration.”

“If you ran that kind of voltage through me all night, I’d be dead.” Tremblay pointed out.

“And there’s snag three, they’re hugely wasteful of energy. Chucking that kind of power through a gauss gun would be a much more effective way to kill something. And this is a weapon, boss, so we have to assume that from ET’s point of view there’s some advantage to these things that excuses the drawbacks."

“What might those be?”

“Well, zero recoil for a start.” Nadeau ticked off on his fingers. “Literally none. Which, if these things are as weak as the biologists think is probably a huge boon. And I guess with no barrel to accelerate a physical projectile the gun can reconfigure itself for any anatomy without having to accommodate a long, straight component with a mechanism at the end. Solid-state electronics can be a lot more flexible. Low maintenance, too: it can’t jam because there’s no moving parts. And if your generators are able to extract huge amounts of power out of rainbows and wishes like these alien ones seem to, you’ve got unlimited ammo, too."

“But for our purposes they’re effectively worthless.” Tremblay concluded for him.

“Far from it. The potential applications of an electrostatic force field generator are incredible, both for the military and for civilian use. Never mind the capacitors, generators and nanoelectronics.” Nadeau pointed at the prototype. “And make no mistake boss, that’s all us. There’s not a single alien component in that whole projector, so we’ve cracked the pulse emitters. The capacitors and generators will follow soon enough.”

Both men looked up and cocked their heads as the tannoy called for General Tremblay to his office.

He clapped Nadeau on the arm as he turned to leave. “Outstanding work, Captain. This is the best news I’ve had yet since we started planning this facility. Keep me posted.”

“Will do, sir.”

++

It had been an eventful month, and a frustrating one, and “Kirk” was once again cursing his own sense of integrity. He doubted that any of the other councillors had even heard the name Niccolo di Bernardo dei Machiavelli, let alone read his books, but frankly it didn’t matter. Whether your species were ten-limbed gracile grazers, compact little bundles of raw predatory strength, or shambling hillocks of shaggy fur who communicated in part via bioluminescence, the universal constant seemed to be politics.

Kirk was not cut out to be a politician. He was too honest and forthright. Sure, the constituents loved him and so long as he kept bringing in votes then his party were happy to turn a blind eye to the inconvenient way in which he continued to tell the straightforward truth to a camera lens, but winning public opinion was much less than half the job. At the debating table, straight-talking honesty just meant that you were following an easily intercepted, easily interfered-with trajectory, and your position needed an overwhelming momentum of truth, morality and - above all else - vacuousness if it was likely to succeed. Few politicians were willing to commit to a policy that actually achieved something, on the grounds that if it was capable of doing so, then it was also capable of a spectacular backfire.

But, the Vzk’tk Domain had signed up to the newly-formed Interspecies Committee on Dangerous Lifeforms and, being both a member of the Interspecies Dominion’s security council and its undisputed expert on humanity, Kirk had been assigned there. It was gratifying that the Dominion was taking the Committee seriously at least, because most of the other major galactic powers

• the Corti Directorate, the Grand Houses of Kwmbwrw, the Rauwryhr Federation, the Chehnash State, the Clans of Gao, plus the Corporate Coalition, the Alliance of the Uplifted and the Guild of Free Spacer - all seemed to have used it as a dumping ground for their most obfuscating, obtuse and obstructive delegates.

Fortunately, the Guvnurag Confederacy seemed to be taking the issue seriously as well, and Kirk therefore had a staunch and constant ally in Councillor Vedregnegnug, an old and constant friend and a rather more shrewd operator. They formed a “good cop, bad cop” team at the table, with Kirk playing the firebrand, forthright bad cop who bullied the Committee with proposals that had actual substance, and Vedreg playing the good cop who wheedled, placated and silver-tongued them into agreeing to do what they had, minutes before, been staunchly opposed to on principle. It was a potent combination but slow going, and Kirk was glad when the mediator program declared that the day’s deliberations had come to an end. His head felt hot and densely-packed from too many long hours listening to too many insufferable bores repeat too many variations of the exact same stance, which he could have summed up in a single word had he wanted.

“Caution.”

“I beg your pardon, councillor?” asked one of the station’s janitor drones, programmed with a limited AI that would forever fall just short of actual independent thought, but had attained unfailing innocuous politeness.

Kirk started at the query and raised his head: He had clearly dozed off and was now alone in the meeting room save for the custodial machines. “Nothing. Where the hell are my aides?”

“They judged that you desired some time alone, Councillor. Shall I summon them?”

“No.” he stood and stretched, rolling the long neck for which both the species of the Domain were famed and enjoying the feeling as the long flexible sheath of cartilege that protected his spinal cord was massaged by the gentle motion. It took some time. Then he asked of the drone, which was playing a kinetic manipulation field across the carpet under the table, collecting fallen detritus, shed fur and skin-dust: “Does this station have an observation deck?”

“It does councillor, though Councillor Vedregnegnug has flagged that query with his personal recommendation that you might prefer the biodeck.”

“The biodeck?” Kirk repeated, having not heard of such a thing before.

“The councillor added it as an extension to his personal suite. Access is limited to only yourself and himself. Shall I program the elevator to take you there? I understand that there will be fresh Cqcq leaves.”

“Yes, please.”

The elevator needed a full minute to run the full length of the station from the meeting room to the VIP residential ring, but when he stepped out of it, Kirk’s impatience evaporated. It was stunning. Vedreg must have spent an enormous amount of money in having this structure tacked on to his apartments. Even now, at the height of an ongoing interstellar civilisation that had lasted for nearly a thousand standard cycles (five hundred years) space was at a premium aboard stations, and was expensive.

Nevertheless, Vedreg had acquired a substantial area, and turned it into a garden, here in space, with a geodesic shell that afforded a wonderful view of the stars and shone tuned simulated sunlight into each of the simulated biomes. the containment fields that kept the air and temperature from mingling between each one were barely-visible scarlet sheets of iridescence in the air, and behind them was a little patch of soil crowded with plant life from several major planets.

Kirk wandered entranced past a Nurugvugundrugevdrevegnagnugnum reef from Vedreg’s own homeworld. The name translated literally as “Place where all life is welcome and thrives as one, harmoniously.” Some of the plants fluoresced at him as he walked past, turning to capture a fraction of his body heat. Elsewhere, he saw a sandy Cortan biome, full of sandstickles and triproot tended by little tumbling Rockskitters. Kirk paused to admire a lush frond of Cqcq from his own homeworld, and was contemplating leaning in past the containment field to sample some of its rich leaves when his gaze alighted upon the centerpiece of the biodeck.

This field was stronger and more visible, and as he approached it, subtle warning markers appeared, displayed holographically along its top and bottom in the universal “danger blue” used all over the Interspecies Dominion to warn of hazards. They stated simply that the field was set to be impassible, and that the environment beyond contained biohazardous atmospheric contaminants, dangerous airborne allergens and venomous fauna.

He recognised what stood in the middle instantly: three young trees, an Oak, an Apple tree, and a Cherry, the latter currently in full lush bloom. Around their bases, being tended by a variety of small gardener drones, was a bed of flowers. His implants received the relevant information as he studied them: Pansies, Hellebore, Lilac, Puschkinia and more. Golden-and-white fish mouthed lazily in a lenticular pond to one side, and bees hummed back and forth from a hive opposite.

“I thought you would find the centerpiece most interesting.” Vedreg commented, and Kirk started. His friend had been present all along, seated on a bench configured for his species and apparently enjoying the exact same view.

“Beautiful!” Kirk exclaimed. “But how can it be here? Earth is a protected world and a Class 12, how could you possibly have acquired these?”

“Wealth and influence.” Vedreg declared, and his bioluminescent flank turned a shade of contrite taupe. “An intimate working knowledge of the minutiae of galactic law and, of course, the knowledge that three of the most successful antibiotics that the Corti have released in the last fifty cycles were derived from samples collected on Earth.”

“I don’t follow you.” Kirk told him.

“The laws only apply to samples directly collected from Earth. As these are cultivars or seed from specimens collected on Earth before the quarantine came into effect, they are, legally speaking, exempt from it. I assure you, every single one is completely legal to own.” bands of smug yellow and blue stippled down him. “A councillor cannot be caught in possession of contraband, after all. Arranging that these specimens would not be contraband was, how do they say it? Child’s play.”

“Aren’t they dangerous?” Kirk asked.

“Sterilized to a fare-thee-well, though the necessary Mycorrhizal fungi in their roots would prove to be extremely tenacious should it escape into another of these biomes, not to mention fatal for the unfortunate flora it infected. The pollens, however, would have us both in anaphylactic shock very swiftly indeed should the field fail. Securing against that scenario was very costly indeed.” Green swept up his flank backwards - the equivalent of a sniff. “From what I understand, even humans with their fearsome immune systems can suffer quite profusely from their effects. The warning about the venomous fauna is purely a legal requirement, while those bees could land you in the medical bay if they stung you, they won’t, as a rule, since doing so is fatal to them also.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. Remarkable creatures. Survival of the whole in one of the galaxy’s most hostile competitive environments through instinctive self-sacrifice of the individual. Have you read Richard Dawkins?”

“I haven’t, no.” Kirk detected the steady soft glow of purple light that indicated Vedreg’s approval and respect, though whether for the author or for the insect was unclear.

“I suspect only a Human would have been in a position to pick up on the concepts he did. “The selfish gene”, he called it. Excellent book. It explains that the process of evolution is an inherently selfish one, from the perspective of the allele. I’m no biologist, but I understand much more of what they’re saying for having read it.

“If it’s selfish, why aren’t all our worlds like that?” Kirk asked, waving one of his longer, uppermost arms at the Terran terrarium.

“Because on most worlds the optimal selfish survival strategy for your average gene is to not rock the boat. Life enters a reciprocal, interconnected harmony and stays there, changing only slowly if at all. But life on Earth has too many factors outside of the food chains stirring things up: asteroid strikes, storms, intense seasons, climate shifts, tectonic activity… delicate webs of interdependent species would collapse wholesale down there in short order the first time a major eruption increased the particulate dust in the atmosphere. Only the aggressive survive.” He glowed yellowish-green stippled with blue, white and bands of darkness - a complicated emotional cocktail of respect, admiration, intimidation, and sadness.

“It’s no wonder the humans struggle so hard to remain balanced and in-tune with nature.” He said. “Their whole genetic history has granted survival only to those that ruthlessly seized every opportunity for advancement.”

“Are you always this melancholy, Vedreg?” Kirk asked.

“Only when I have received terrible news, old friend.”

“What news?”

“My government is taking matters into its own hands and preparing to enforce the Quarantine around Earth with extreme prejudice.”

Kirk stood still, processing this. Finally, speaking delicately, he asked. “Could you please define “extreme prejudice?”

Vedreg’s strips were completely inert, showing no colour at all, not even a neutral paleness, a sign of deepest sorrow and regret. He handed over an infopad.

“As of right now, a fleet of warships is en route to Sol. Their objective is to deploy an experimental device.”

“A weapon?!” Kirk couldn’t believe it. He began scanning the files as Vedreg replied.

“Mercifully not. Panicked herd beasts though they are, my people are not genocidal. No, this device will simply erect a containment barrier around the entire system. Powered by a fraction of Sol’s own radiation, it will last for several million cycles.”

His flanks became a line of dark, angry green for just a moment, before shading to blue - bitter amusement. “No, we are not genocidal, but, it seems, we are happy Apartheidists. For the simple crime of evolving on the wrong world, the Guvnuragnaguvendrugun Confederacy has sentenced the species homo sapiens to indefinite incarceration.

“Effective when?”

Vedreg sighed - one of the few emotional vocalisations his species had available to them.

“Effective, my dear Kirk, as of [twenty minutes] ago."

Chapter 5
Chapter 04: “Quarantine” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

“ALL of them?”

“We haven’t had enough time to count ALL of them, but, uh… yes, it looks that way.”

“Well, what does it mean?”

Major Bartlett’s expression contorted into the open anguish of somebody completely at a loss. “Every single star in the sky suddenly becoming eight percent less luminous? The only scenario I can think of that would explain that one scares the shit out of me.”

General Tremblay folded his arms. “Well? Don’t beat around the bush, what is it?”

Bartlett cleared his throat. Somehow he almost couldn’t bring himself to believe what he was about to say. “Well, the only scenario I can think of which would explain a uniform decrease in luminosity from our perspective of every star in the sky would be if we had become encased in an almost transparent shell of some kind.” he explained.

“‘We’ meaning…?”

“The whole planet sir. Maybe the whole system. It depends on whether the outer planets have undergone a similar drop.”

“Find out.” Tremblay ordered, and Bartlett spun away to comply. “Somebody get Nadeau and whoever he thinks is his team’s premier expert on these electrostatic fields up here. And get me the defense minister.”

“He’s already on the line sir. He called you.”

“About this?”

“Yes, General.”

“How in the fuck did he find out?” Tremblay demanded.

“Apparently it’s all over the news, sir…”

++

The Abductees listened to the radio in silence for several hours. So, it seemed, did everybody else.

For those few short hours, for the first time ever, a subject commanded the entirety of the human race’s attention. Humanity forgot its wars and differences. Prejudices were set aside, wars ceased to rage. Across the globe, people gathered around radios, television sets and any device with Internet access as the world’ media collectively sifted, ground down and filtered the facts from the speculation.

There was much, much more of the latter, than of the former.

The same questions circled the globe, gaining just a little more force and passion with every repetition until, even if the individual humans may not utter the word aloud, the communication networks of an entire planet thrummed with one collective outraged cry:

“Why?”

Only a handful of people on the whole Earth knew the answer to that question. Most thought they were alone, and kept the answer to themselves. Some few were part of a convoy that had temporarily paused at a campground in Wyoming.

In San Diego, one withdrew a slim smartphone from his dapper, tailored suit and, by activating a very modern app, enacted a very old contingency plan.

++

The galaxy’s interest in the Sol system reached fever pitch with the news of the Enclosure. Official footage released by the quarantine fleet showed the experimental containment generator being established. It was an alarmingly small and unassuming little edifice - a metal ball scarcely larger than the average being, three or four meters in diameter, with an utterly featureless mirrored surface. It was guided into place by the tractor fields aboard a Confederate corvette, injected into a smooth orbit between the seventh and eighth planets of the Sol system, well inside the outer cometary cloud, and then, without fanfare or ceremony, was activated.

The only sign that this had happened at all came in the form of a few ghostly streamers of turquoise energy as the solar wind and energy output briefly battled with the field boundary, until they reached a stable equilibrium. Only scientific equipment could detect that the brightness and albedo of every object on the far side of the field edge was reduced by a small amount.

Aboard the Observatory, which had used its jump drive to relocate to orbit around Neptune, one Krrkktnkk A’ktnnzzik’tk, Councillor for the Vzk’tk Domain, gave a brief and passionate speech angrily denouncing what he proclaimed as a “miscarriage of justice against a young and vibrant species, unfairly and illegally sentenced without trial to indefinite imprisonment for the simple crime of being who they are.”

His words did not pass without support. Far from it - protests erupted all across the galaxy, and the interstellar communications grid practically locked with messages, videos, sensory recordings and essays condemning the move.

But a good third part of the traffic pointed out that if the Hunters had been similarly quarantined upon their discovery, their gruesome and horrific meat- slave raids and farms would never have happened. These messages pointed out that here too was a species that consumed the meat of even quite intelligent fauna species on their homeworld, whose history was one of ceaseless warfare, and whose physical durability and prowess in the field of violence would render them completely unstoppable should they prove to be hostile.

Footage circulated of a lone, unarmoured human slayinging Vulza with nothing but a fusion scythe, authenticated by reports from troopers who had seen the event first-hand. An expert witness - a Corti researcher with a particular interest in human biology - declared that the human in that footage showed clear signs of malnourishment, lack of exercise, and fatigue, meaning that he was operating considerably below peak efficiency. The same witness produced reports on a family of Vzk’tk who had required stasis at a class 10 experimental hospital for more than a standard cycle before they were finally able to be cured of the diseases that they had caught from only a few seconds’ contact with one escaped human specimen, and that these disease specimens had required immediate destruction lest they fall into the wrong hands and be used to engineer a viral superweapon. One brief video showed a human accidentally breaking a being’s medial spine with a single hearty slap: the contextual information revealed that the crippling gesture had been intended as a friendly one.

Countering these damning accounts came footage from elsewhere in the galaxy. A human giving her life to vent a hazardous materials spill into space and save the station she was aboard and its thousands of inhabitants, wading through radiation that would have fried the nervous system of any other being in moments. Footage of a human calmly holding down a struggling Vgork alpha male in Musth who had tried to enter a creche. The survivor account of one young Kwmbwrw who asserted that a human had carried her on his shoulders for three local days across the tundra of the planet V’chnbritz, delivering her nearly [120 kilometers] to a hospital after the passenger transport they had been on had crashed, before guiding rescue workers back to the crash sight. A Gaoian matriarch who passionately attributed her survival and liberty to a human.

Talking heads from all species tossed these facts and accounts back and forth between them, circling but never quite approaching a conclusion on whether the Enclosure had been the wrong thing to do. In the background, various governments quietly lined up alongside the Guvnuragnaguvendrugun Confederacy and congratulated them on their foresighted action.

Brooding in his office aboard the Observatory, Kirk received a message. He read it three times. He was still considering its implications when he received a second one. This, he read only once.

Then, cybernetic hand shaking, he tendered his resignation.

++

++

♪♫_The good guys dress in black, remember that, just in case we ever face-to- face and make contact…_♫♪

Terri had set her phone to play Will Smith’s “Men In Black” whenever her mysterious client called her. It had seemed appropriate given the nature of the job. Now, as some of the nearby Abductees gave her a strange look, she slightly regretted it. They had heard that song on the radio a LOT lately.

She walked away from the group a little way and answered.

“Terri Boone, it’s a pleasure to hear from you, ‘Mr. Johnson’.” she carefully pronounced the quotation marks around his alias. She wasn’t naive and at times like this the chance to prove it was welcome.

“And from you, Miss Boone.” Mr. Johnson had a curiously accentless voice. Just a hint of clipped British, just a pinch of DC politician, just a touch of Hollywood star, a whole lot of anywhere in the English-speaking world. “I think you’ll understand if recent events have made me eager to learn how your commission is going.”

“It’s… well, it’s gotten a little out of hand, to be honest.” Terri admitted.

“I hoped that it would.” Johnson said. The confession was made perfectly level and calm. “In what way?”

“I think we’ve picked up every genuine Abductee east of the Rockies.” she reported. “There’s some kind of a pilgrimage going on here, and I don’t quite know what its objective is. They all seem to be singing from the same hymnbook, but I don’t know the words.”

“Very religious.”

“I’m Catholic.”

There was a pause. An unnatural one - Terri realised she couldn’t even hear Mr. Johnson breathe, or laugh, or whatever he was doing. She almost jumped when he spoke again.

“Miss Boone, I think I consider your commission in the matter of finding the Abductees to have been satisfactorily completed. If you would care to leave the contact details with which I provided you in the care of whoever seems to be in charge, I have another situation in San Diego which requires your attention. Oh, leave them the credit card I gave you, too.”

“You don’t want to meet them?” Terri asked.

“I had an inkling that they would behave like this.” her client explained. “Your ‘pilgrimage’ was just waiting to happen, all they needed was somebody to set it in motion. If you could relay to them that their destination is a town called Scotch Creek, in British Columbia, then I think they will have all that we need.”

Terri shrugged. “You’re the man with the money.” She said, internally noting the “we” rather than a “they”.

“It’s always a pleasure doing business with a professional, Miss Boone. Please, call me once you’re back in San Diego and have taken a night’s rest.”

“Wait, I’m supposed to leave them the credit card AND get back? How am I going to pay for gas and motels?”

“Given that your commission has been completed,” said Johnson “you should find that your bank balance is replete. There’s even a bonus in there for travel expenses. I assume you have your own cards?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“Very good. I would prefer if you could fly back down, Miss Boone. Time may not be of the essence, but the sooner you are here, the better we can maintain our momentum.”

“I’ll… see you ASAP then.” Terri said.

"Bon voyage, Miss Boone."

Johnson hung up. Terri stared at her phone for a minute, and then made use of the campground’s wifi to check her bank account. It was the first time she had ever looked at it and seen six figures before the decimal. And such a large six figures, too.

She glanced up at the sky, thinking. Whatever was going on up there was a mystery. Terri hated mysteries, and she could sense that the answer was wrapped up with the Abductees somehow. Was that kind of money really so important now that galactic forces had apparently taken an interest in Earth?

But then again… the world hadn’t actually ended, yet. And in light of that, it seemed probable that it would continue to not end. Mr. Johnson’s second project was clearly important enough to leave the first unsupervised, and if he had paid so well for the first, well…

A sensible, frugal woman could satisfy her curiosity all she wanted on that kind of money, well invested.

++

Perfection was a prosperous Class Three planet that had been granted independence from, and protection by, the four species whose territory encroached on the volume of space around it. Originally it had been simple neutral ground, but the Perfection system’s Platinum-rich asteroid belt and the verdant ecosystem of the planet Perfection had both contributed to making it wealthy. Interstellar trade conglomerates had taken an interest and the system was now, after several consecutive hundred-cycles of growth, a thriving commercial and industrial hub, the most densely-populated planet for some considerable distance in any direction.

The system capital city, Idyll, had long since ceased to live up to its name. Admittedly from a distance its gleaming skyscrapers, spun in glass and ultratensile steel that smouldered in the sunset, were breathtaking and the wealthy citizens who could afford to live in those buildings that caught the sun for an appreciable fraction of the day lived at the pinnacle of luxury.

But Idyll was as notorious for its festering streets and ghettos as for its glittering prosperity, and that squalid underbelly of Perfection was Kirk’s destination.

Given that his resignation was still echoing around the news channels as another act in the unfolding drama over Earth and the Humans, he had elected, rather than take a public or diplomatic shuttle, to splash on buying a new ship of his own. It had taken a bit of money on such short notice, but he had acquired an expensive star-runner that was little more than a bed, ablution cubicle and control seat bolted to the front of an enormous Domain fusion plant and the latest model of Corti black-box FTL engine. It was incomprehensibly fast, and about as safe as space travel could get: it could just outrun any interception.

Flash starships in most of the Idyll sprawl were prime targets for theft, but not where he was going. There was one specific block, he knew, where even the most expensive and rare collector’s-item ship could land and be completely safe, because the kind of beings who parked there had a reputation. He exploited that reputation to its fullest, wearing a full-length black coat with a privacy field generator in the hood. The most any witness might tell would be that they had seen a Rrrrtktktkp’ch.

Those witnesses would all know where he was going - none of them would tell. He passed a similarly cloaked figure and they exchanged anonymous gestures of recognition, and parted ways. The Contact kept to a mechanically precise timetable.

The Contact was a Corti. This particular Corti sat politely at a desk behind a modest computer terminal, and welcomed him with insincere warmth as Kirk entered.

“You are punctual. I like that in a new client.” she said.

“If only I were a new client, Vakno.” Kirk said. He lowered his hood, and the privacy field shut off. Just for a second, her composure slipped, and he allowed himself a little moment of private triumph.

“Officer A’ktnnzzik’tk. I had not expected to do business with you again.”

Kirk allowed her a tight smile. “We didn’t do business, Vakno, I arrested you.” He said. He enjoyed the way she winced as he speared her with her real name.

“Would it be too much to ask how you knew where to find me?” Vakno asked him. She waved a slender-fingered hand through the control field of her computer and it went dark.

“It would.”

The Corti hopped down from her chair and a door hidden seamlessly in the wall slid open, revealing a rather more comfortable suite of rooms hidden behind the office. “And here I thought I had learned not to underestimate you.” She said. “Please, come in.”

“Your schedule?” Kirk asked, joining her.

“On hold. When the most notorious Councillor in the galaxy walks into my office, I give him my fullest and most special attention.” She replied, a little too smoothly in Kirk’s opinion. “Are you here to arrest me again?”

“Are you trying to smuggle virus programs onto my station again?”

“You can plainly see that I am not.”

“Then you’d be outside my jurisdiction even if I was still a member of a station security force.” Kirk said, dismissively. “Just between us, and considering that the case is long-since closed and you did your time for it, what would those have actually accomplished?”

Vakno affected an air of wistful regret. “Oh, they would have got me the passwords to the private communicator belonging to a Xarx actress who was laying over on your station shortly after my visit. I had reason to believe it contained incriminating footage of her satisfying her mating urges in the company of a litter of Kwen siblings. Lucrative data, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“And you wonder why the galaxy considers Corti to be morally bankrupt.” Kirk said.

“No, I don’t. Please, shall we get to business? I assume you didn’t visit just to reminisce?"

Kirk agreed, and sat down. “Humans.” He said.

“Ah, of course. What other subject would you be interested in right now?”

“I want to know how many of them the Directorate abducted.”

Vakno delivered the Corti equivalent of an, again, insincere and disdainful little laugh. “You think I have access to that kind of information. Your sense of humour has improved over the cycles, it seems.”

“The only thing that gets a Corti kicked out of the Directorate is directly acting against the interests of the Corti species as a whole. I KNOW you have access to that information.” Kirk retorted. “But all I want is to know how many humans are outside the containment field. That seems benign enough, doesn’t it?”

“Where humans are concerned there is no such thing as 'benign’, Councillor A’ktnnzzik’tk. Every time one of them has escaped our zoological teams, or was released by well-meaning animal welfare officers, the results have been unpredictable and alarming." Vakno displayed intense emotion, her grey skin flushing decidedly blue around the mandible. “The Directorate’s officialy policy regarding that species is 'Do not underestimate them.' Lone humans have changed the course of wars, infected whole cultures with strange new ideas, even triggered the development of whole new exotic technology branches."

“All the more reason to keep tabs on the ones not quarantined on Earth, then.” Kirk said.

“What’s that charming expression of theirs? Bullshit, Councillor. Don’t expect me to believe that the same being who was loudly proclaiming how this quarantine is a travesty and a, quote: "Violation of their rights as a sentient race" end quote has suddenly had a change of heart and intends to help us enforce it."

“And if I could pronounce that ‘charming expression’ I’d repeat it back to you. The Directorate doesn’t stand to profit if that field stays up. You’re the ones with all that hard-earned technology, all those products you’re ready to sell to the human market if and when it becomes available. You don’t stand to gain a damn thing by enforcing that quarantine. Quite the reverse, that’s a lot of investment written off.”

Vakno dismissed that. “Affordable.”

“Why accept an affordable loss at all when there’s a lucrative opportunity to be had? I buy that information off you and… well, we shall see where it leads. As you say, Humans are unpredictable.” Kirk paused. “Of course, being unpredictable could equally mean that they might breach that shield on their own. If and when that were to happen, don’t you think it would be more lucrative to be counted among the species that advocated and contributed to their freedom?"

“I don’t have that kind of authority and you know it.” Vakno snapped.

“No Corti does, I know. That’s not how your species works.” Kirk agreed. “But if the Directorate haven’t got plans to play both sides and put a positive spin on it when they turn out to have been on the winning side all along, well, then you’re not the pragmatists that I know you are. Especially you personally, Vakno.”

He settled back and played his best card. “Or of course I could spread the word that The Contact wasn’t able to help me…”

There was a long, chilly pause, and then Kirk’s personal implants acknowledged receipt of a file transfer.

“Just so you’re aware, A’ktnnzzik’tk, I will be notifying the Directorate to amend our official policy.”

“You will?”

“Oh yes. It seems we shouldn’t underestimate Humanity’s allies, either. Get out.”

++

“Faster-Than-Light travel.”

“Yes, General. Technically, a variant on the Alcubierre warp drive.”

Tremblay stared blankly at the report. Much of it was incomprehensible physicist jargon and blocks of arcane mathematics. “Alcubierre?”

“Miguel Alcubierre Moya, a Mexican theoretical physicist. He proposed his warp drive ideas in ninety-four, but there are some… issues with it that kept it purely theoretical.”

“Spare me. This is a variant on his design?”

“Well, it was never technically a design as such just the mathematical…"

"Major."

Bartlett paused, and the rebuke finally got through the intellectual haze that he had been swimming in from the day he had first laid his hands on the alien technology.

“Sorry, sir. Uh… effectively, yes. In layman’s terms, sir… It’s kind of like walking on the moving walkway at an airport. You might be doing five kilometers per hour, but if the walkway’s doing that too in the same direction then you wind up travelling at ten KPH, right?”

“I’m familiar with the phenomenon.” Tremblay said. “So that’s what this warp drive does?”

“Kind of, sir.” Bartlett’s tone of voice suggested that the analogy was far from adequate, but he forged ahead. “The principle hinges on expanding and contracting spacetime around the ship. Some of the tech in those alien pods that shot through the arena roof held the key.”

“The key being…?”

“Well, they’re so fragile, how the hell would they survive slamming through reinforced concrete at that kind of speed? We wouldn’t, and it looks like humans are much tougher than those aliens were.” Bartlett consulted his own notes at this point. “The report has it that the pods contained devices which temporarily suspended the flow of time inside the field they generate.”

“And that led us to faster-than-light travel somehow.” Tremblay finished for him, and examined the report in front of him. “Something to do with space and time being the same thing, it says here.”

“Spacetime, yes. And if you can stop time, you can stretch space. And once you can stretch space then you can stretch it so that your spaceship-on-a-walkway is going faster than light.”

“How much faster?" Tremblay asked him.

“That depends on how much juice you give it, sir. More power, more speed.” Bartlett said. “I couldn’t give you exact numbers, that’s going to take a lot of experimentation.”

“I think we can take my okay for a working warp drive as read, Bartlett.”

“Thank you sir, but it isn’t quite that easy. We can’t test it down here on Earth. If we want to go ahead with this, it’s going to have to go up to the ISS.”

“Why?”

“Because if we get it only mostly right the resulting explosion would be like a nuke going off." Bartlett wobbled his head. “Plus, you know, we’re testing an FTL drive here. You need a lot of room to work with just to measure the results.”

Tremblay sighed. “I guess it was only a matter of time before we started having to share this stuff outside of NATO. I’ll contact the Defense Minister, pass the buck to him and the PM. Any other crazy surprises come out of those pods that I should know about?”

“Not today, sir.”

“Right. Carry on, Major.”

“Sir.” Bartlett left, poring over his notes as he went. For the first time in several days, Tremblay suddenly found himself with a spare and quiet moment. Robbed of anything to distract him from it, the fatigue of the last few days hit him at full force and he sat back, rubbed his face, ran his hands back across his scalp and stretched in his seat, resolving to take ten hours to sleep tonight rather than reading base reports in bed for a few hours.

He must have dozed off anyway, because he woke with a snort when there was a sharp knock on the door. He stole a glance at the wall clock as he cleaned himself up and straightened his clothes - “Come.”

Tremblay had worked with Sergeant Ramsey, the base’s chief of perimeter security, for years, and the only thing stopping the two men from being good friends was the demands of professionalism. They still played poker with a few other senior staff every Sunday though. For the duration of those games, they were just Steve and Martin. Right now though, Ramsey ripped off a salute.

“I thought you’d want the buck passed on this one, sir.”

Tremblay stifled the urge to yawn. He trusted Ramsey’s judgement, implicitly, and so simply replied “Okay, pass it.”

“We’ve had a… I guess the best word is “convoy” show up, sir. About thirty cars, vans, all civilian. They’re staying on a field down in town, but one of them delivered this to the gate guards.”

He placed a plastic binder on the general’s desk and stood back, watching as Tremblay flipped it open. A few wide-eyed seconds later, Tremblay looked up.

“I want to talk to the man who delivered this.”

“Yes sir. He’s at the gatehouse. He said his name is Jenkins, sir.”

Chapter 6
Chapter 05: “Deliverance” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

++Four years previously.++

Everybody loved a home side win, except for the tourists. Amir didn’t feel like a tourist, but Pakistani people supported the Pakistani cricket team, even if - like him - they had been born in Birmingham, had never left England, spoke English more fluently than their supposed “native” language, with an accent that was as British as tea and wet weather.

“Amir!”

His best friend Muhammad and the rest of his friends had started heading in a different direction while Amir was zoned out. “You coming?” he asked.

Amir knew what the answer would be, but he had to ask anyway. It was how things worked. “Where?”

“For a drink! Come on bruv, we may as well have SOME fun tonight.”

Amir shook his head. “You know that’s haram." he said. It was their one constant conflict that Muhammad was only a Muslim when it was convenient. The rest of the time, he was just another nineteen-year-old, high on life and not interested in the consequences.

“We’re all sinners, bruv.” Muhammad told him, amicably.

Amir turned away “I’ll see you tomorrow.” he called over his shoulder.

At least there were no catcalls or anything. They respected his faith that much, even if they didn’t respect it enough to practice it properly themselves. He just wished that his best friend wouldn’t use “we’re all sinners” as an excuse. It may have been true, but that didn’t mean he had to exploit it. That just didn’t feel like Islam.

He didn’t preach though. He was no Imam, he didn’t know how to be. All he had was his job delivering takeaway food, a council flat, and his religion. It was enough, most days.

He knew from experience that the bus stops near the Edgbaston cricket ground would always be heaving after a one-day game. He didn’t mind the walk: it was mid-July, and even the famously inclement British weather had decided to produce a warm night. So, anonymous and alone with his thoughts, he weaved through streets of Friday-night partiers, just another brown face in a crowd that ran the full gamut of human shades, hunched and with his fingers fidgeting with the edge of his pockets.

He was so shrouded in melancholy that he didn’t even see the person he walked into, but they felt solid as a rock. Knowing full well that a Pakistani face in this day and age could get into serious trouble with a surly drunk, he stepped back a pace, and got halfway through his “sorry mate” when he realised that the other man wasn’t moving. In fact, he still had his back turned.

Nobody else was moving either. Nothing else was moving. Traffic stood as still as scenery in the street. The pavement was solid-packed with warm, clothed, human statues, penning him in - he couldn’t even shove them aside to weave through the crowd. He stared at a young woman - she was in the middle of flicking her hair aside to answer her phone, and it stood out impossibly parallel to the ground. Even the light had a strange quality - he swore it took his shadow a brief instant to react when he moved.

And then that shadow became much better-defined as the night-time street orange was flooded out by whiteness. He looked up, and it filled his vision.

One man looked around in confusion, rubbed his back, and returned to his conversation. The streets didn’t even notice that Amir Bahmani was gone.

++

Kirk was a rich being - a Councillor of the Domain earned a handy sum of money from their position, not to mention the royalties from his biographical accounts, political sponsorships and some shrewd investments. Nevertheless, between buying his ultra-fast ship and then having it fast-tracked through a refit drydock at a corporate freeport where the owners were happy to sign an anonymity contract for an appropriate fee… well. His accounts were looking rather less healthy than they had done in some time.

They would, however, bounce back. He was a client of one of the best investment brokers in the business, after all. And the refits had been worth it. The little life-support blister with its bed, ablutions cubicle and control console had been dismounted from the hull, and behind it had been installed a somewhat larger and more luxurious living suite. Below that, a workshop loaded with the latest in nanofactories and CAD/CAM tools, a dense and comprehensive automated laboratory that could double as a sickbay.

And behind that, the enormous generator and the sealed unit that was the Corti blackbox drive. Mass made no difference to a Corti drive - any ship, any size, any tonnage, the only thing that mattered was how much energy you could force down that little box’s throat, and the behemothic bulk of the fusion reactor that made up by far the largest part of the ship’s size and mass was rated to power city districts.

There was one last addition: an excursion chamber, equipped with all the gear he could need to remain safe on practically any planet up to and including a Class 12. And it was necessary - the first destination on his list was a Class 10, an unclaimed world (after all, who in their right minds would want to claim a death world?) with the uninspiring designation “Main Yellow 2.554 67-1.002 09-0.141 3-57.888 11-3 Terrestrial Temperate 10” - literally nothing more than the type and location of the planet and of the star it orbited.

He slept most of the journey out. The downside he was discovering to his ship was that, having as it did a stupefying turn of speed, the trip times were barely long enough for him to complete the in-flight checklist and get some rest. By the time his alarm woke him he was already within the last hundred or so interstellar units of final approach. There had barely been time for his neural implants to convert the slow-access digital data on his destination into working organic memory.

But, they had. He knew everything that it was practical and useful for him to know about that world, barring any gaps in the data, which was how he handled its unique upper-atmospheric turbulence with practiced ease despite having never previously landed without guidance from the ground.

It helped that his target co-ordinates were experiencing a clear day, and as hoped he found a thermal contact within only a short distance of the information that had been in Vakno’s file. Best to land a little way from it, he thought.

He did so. Landing a ship that was effectively a couple of small rooms tacked onto a highly oblate spheroid was a challenge in its own right under MY210 573TT10’s gravity, which was nearly 20% higher than the galactic standard norm. Not as high as Earth’s, but enough to be uncomfortable once he stepped outside of the ship’s generated gravity field. Once landed, he performed those few post-flight checks that any good pilot concerned themselves with, and then retreated to the excursion room.

It took only moments to select the appropriate harness and don it. The device had its own onboard gravity generator that would mitigate the local field, and the rest was a biofiltration force field that should keep anything nasty from coming into contact with him.

Time to meet the first human he had seen in the flesh for three years.

++

Amir had expected a ramp. Instead, the whole room slung under the ship’s equatorial ring descended to ground level, and a pair of large and very solid doors opened, gracefully and silently. He hefted his spear. If it was another of those grey-skinned devils, it wouldn’t know what hit it.

Instead, what stepped out and blinked in the sunlight was a six-legged being fully twice his height, upright atop a complicated pelvis. It raised both its pairs of hands in a gesture of peace and surrender and, with exaggerated care, produced a piece of technology which it set on the ground. The alien clicked at it, producing a sound not dissimilar to a strip of cardboard in a bike’s spokes. This was, apparently, some kind of a language, because once it had finished clicking, the little device on the ground spoke in flawless, though unaccented, English.

“Please, I couldn’t harm you even if I wanted to. You don’t need the spear, Mr. Bahmani.”

Amir practically fell over. It had been years since he had last heard any human language at all, let alone his name.

“H…” the words wouldn’t come at first. He could barely remember speaking aloud other than to recite the Adhān to call himself to Ṣalāt five times a day, and the Rakaʿāt. He had not spoken anything else in… years, probably.

They had been important. Only his faith had kept him going throughout those years. He didn’t have the first idea which way Mecca was, and so had simply settled for facing toward this planet’s east.

He cleared his throat and tried again. “You know English?”

This generated a chattering sound from the being’s lower abdomen, which he decided was probably laughter, followed by another barrage of clicking and crackling noises. “I couldn’t begin to pronounce English, I’m afraid. But my translator here can. You are Amir Bahmani though, yes?”

“I… yes. How do you know?”

The being made a gesture that he couldn’t identify - its body language was unreadable.

“I paid good money to get my hands on a copy of your abductor’s records.” It told him. “My name is…” <an unintelligible sound like plastic beads in a blender> “…but other humans have nicknamed me “Kirk”.”

“Kirk… like, Star Trek?”

“That’s the joke I think, yes. Though it’s also a fair approximation of the first syllable of my name.”

“My abductors… You’re not with them are you?” Amir hefted his spear again, and “Kirk” retreated a step or two, holding up four placating hands.

“No, no. I draw the line at abduction, vivisection and experimentation upon sentient beings. No, I’m here to offer you the chance to leave, if you wish.”

“You’ll take me home?!” Hope swelled in Amir for the first time in a long while. Earth! people! He mentally corrected himself at that one - Human people!

“If only I could.” Kirk told him. “But Earth is… well. The focus of much attention right now.” He looked around at Amir’s camp. “Actually, I’ll just be blunt about it. The rest of the galaxy found out about your species and collectively shit themselves in fear. Earth has been quarantined - they put up a force field around the whole solar system, nothing gets in or out. I… disagree with that decision. I have a plan, and it starts with finding every abductee I can and offering them the hope of a way home.”

He extended a hand, and Amir noticed for the first time that it was made of sleek plastic and metal rather than pale flesh. “Are you in?” Kirk asked. “Shake carefully please, it doesn’t matter so much if you break the prosthetic rather than my actual hand, but they’re a pain to repair.”

"Bismillah! You have to ask? I want to go home."

They shook hands.

“I promise, I’ll try.” Kirk told him.

++

Having a uniformed chauffeur waiting at the airport holding up a sign with “Terri Boone” on it was a novel experience. The chauffeur was efficiency itself as she took Terri’s bags and politely delivered her into the back seat of a sleek black Audi. Next to the expensive car with its buff leather upholstery and general air of wealth, her travel-stained jeans, battered leather jacket and the faded hoody from Chamonix she had owned since a teenage skiing vacation that she wore under the jacket all looked not just dishevelled, but downright squalid.

She entertained herself on her phone as the chauffeur weaved in the comfortable silence of money through freeway and midtown traffic to her apartment, and was surprised when the chauffeur not only brought in the bags, but insisted that no tip was necessary. After quickly discussing what time the car would arrive to take her to Mr. Johnson’s office, she was left alone to re-acquaint herself with her neglected home.

She threw open the windows and lit some scented candles to drive out the scent of emptiness that had built up in the months she had been gone and then, in a move that would have surprised anyone who did not know her extremely well, she emptied all the drawers out of the chest next to her bed and lifted it up, revealing a small, slim box stashed underneath.

From this she withdrew a device of some kind and a USB stick, which she plugged into her PC and launched some programs from, before spending nearly two hours carefully inspecting every nook and cranny of her apartment with the device. Eventually, and apparently satisfied, she returned both to their box and rebuilt the hiding place.

Only then did she boot up some more programs. She spent half an hour alternately typing and watching the screen intently. That done, she took a spin through the shower, combed her hair, threw on some fresh clothing and the same old leather jacket, grabbed her handbag, and departed.

She would have been thoroughly disappointed to learn that her sweep for bugs stood no hope whatsoever of detecting the ones that had been installed a month previously. Among other things, finding them would have required a microscope. ++

“Nope, not organised at all.”

Kevin Jenkins was patiently explaining things and going through the notebook as some of the biology and medical teams examined the peculiar scar on his temple. They had made it as far as the political situation.

“I mean, before a few years ago, legally speaking we were all “non-sentient indigenous fauna”. It’s a bureaucratic mess out there, believe me.”

Tremblay examined the notes again. Mostly it was full of observations about the governmental structures of dozens of different species. the Dominion especially was troubling him. “Left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing?”

Jenkins shrugged, ignoring a lab-coat’s protest to keep his head still. “Left hand could fill in a couple forms in triplicate requesting a third-party committee add a debate to their agenda on whether there’s grounds to start the process of commissioning an independent review on what part of the right hand’s up to." he sneered.

“You make it sound… inefficient.” one of the junior officers commented.

“The Dominion couldn’t find whatever passes for their ass with whatever passes for their hands without three policy meetings and a vote.” Jenkins replied, tersely. It wasn’t quite a snap, and certainly not aimed at the officer, but there was definitely bitterness in the way he said it. “It’s all there in the manual.”

“And what’s in the manual is disturbing.” Tremblay said. He turned a page, and arched an eyebrow. “Roswell Greys? Really?"

“That was pretty much my reaction.” Jenkins said. He had a resigned expression as one of the scientists laid a ruler against his scalp and took a picture.

“According to this they call themselves the Corti Directorate and are the ones primarily responsible for alien abductions on Earth.”

“Hence how they became the Roswell Greys, I guess.” Jenkins sniffed. “But they’re not as bad as some of the motherfuckers out there. At least you know where you stand with the Greys, even if that is under a microscope.”

“Under a microscope still sounds pretty bad.”

“Eh, they’re just self-serving, cowardly, apathetic and practical to a fault. At least we can understand how they think. There’s things out there that think in ways I don’t even know the words for.”

“Like those things that attacked Vancouver, I’m guessing.” Tremblay turned to that page. The sketches were remarkably detailed. The biologists had gone into ecstatic paroxysms over them - the high-definition TV footage from the hockey game had been useful, but the panicked and shell-shocked cameramen hadn’t done the world’s best job of focusing on them and what had been delivered for necropsy had been thoroughly pulverised. A sketch was no substitute for having the real thing under the knife of course, but the detailed drawings of the cybernetic interface between creature and gun had answered some unresolved questions.

“Yeah. They scare me, but not for the right reasons.” Jenkins said.

“The right reasons?” That was Doctor Sung, the base’s counsellor and psychologist. He had, hitherto, been silent, content to just sit in the corner and watch the man who claimed to have spent years wandering the galaxy.

“Look, those bastard things… you know how some people see morality in terms of black, white and shades of grey? Well the Hunters see it in purple, orange and shades of fucking tartan. They’re notorious across the whole galaxy for not only eating the meat of sentient beings, but apparently preferring it to, like, farming a cow or something. That sounds like the right reason to be afraid of them, to me. They’re actual honest-to-shit space monsters. But that’s not what scares me about them.”

“What does?” Sung asked.

“You saw what happened in Vancouver.” Jenkins replied. “Well, that was no fluke: I’m telling you, I personally beat the crap out of three of those fuckers with their own limbs, right after I tore said limbs clean off. It wasn’t even difficult, man."

He shrugged helplessly. “The worst nightmares in the galaxy and some random barkeep from Fuck-Nowhere USA can literally dismember them bare-handed. Worst I had to show for it was a black eye. That scares me.”

Sung cocked his head to one side, curiously. “Being powerful scares you?”

“I didn’t do shit to deserve it, you know? It’s not like you can just say “Hey, I EARNED that”, we’re, like, Kryptonians. We’re Superman, and the worst part is we - the human race, right? - we never had Ma and Pa Kent to teach us to be all about protecting people and all that shit. Before Vancouver, every day the news was full of the latest trending fucking atrocity."

He stood up, raised his arms and adopted a goofy parody of a TV presenter. “it’s time for Wheel of Paedophile, where we reveal which TV icon of yesteryear was fiddling little girls! And after that, which journalist got beheaded for God today, kids? Tune in and find out on The Humanity Show!"

The moment of sarcastic enthusiasm died, and he sagged back down. “Hell, it’d still be full if that shit right now if we didn’t have bigger things on our minds. And pretty soon we’re going to go back to being fucked up to each other when it turns out that whatever we do we’re still, like, probably years from even heading out to the barrier and knocking.”

He sighed. “That’s why the Hunters scare me: because despite that they scare the shit out of everything else, The Hunters never got a reaction like this. Which means that somebody up there thinks we’re WORSE than the Hunters, and I’m scared they might just turn out to be right.”

“You don’t think very highly of people, do you.” Tremblay commented.

“You’re damn right!” Jenkins exclaimed. “But, y’know, individuals can be kind of cool, so we’ve got that going for us." he sniffed. “Which is nice.”

++

“I know who you are. You’re a Dominion security councilor.”

Kirk nodded slowly. “That I am.”

He was standing in the office of the ‘mayor’ of an asteroid mining facility deep in Reef Space, a string of systems that had endured the migration of a black hole spat out by the galactic core some few millions of years in the past and which had long since vanished into intergalactic space. Every one of the fifty or so systems in the region was flagged with a navigational hazard warning thanks to the erratic, disturbed orbits of their planets.

Many of those planets had been broken up entirely, leaving behind huge mineral-rich continents of drifting rock just waiting for the miners. The mining colonies of Reef Space were rich. They were also, by and large, unregulated. Nobody knew how many there were, most of them didn’t answer to the Dominion or the Alliance, they certainly didn’t pay their taxes, and the laws were made and enforced locally. And often poorly.

It took a certain kind of ruthless individual to rise to the top in such circumstances. Mayor Brelm was one of the most ruthless. He was a cold, calculating bastard even by Corti standards.

And he was utterly irrelevant as far as Kirk was concerned.

“I heard you quit. Coming to an asteroid facility like this one is a step down for you, isn’t it?” Brelm tapped a slender finger on his desk. “What is it that you want from me?”

“You?” Kirk feigned disinterested surprise. “Forgive me, mayor, I am not here for you. I came here for your bodyguard.”

The slim human woman who had been leaning sulkily against the back wall looked up at him sharply.

“You’re… for her?” Brelm twisted in his chair and looked at the deathworlder behind him. “Did you know anything about this?”

“You are Allison, are you not?” Kirk asked, as the human shrugged at her employer. “Allison Buehler?”

She kicked off from the wall and stood up straight. From what Kirk knew of human females, she was tall and slim. Next to most other species however she still had that pure strength, though Allison compounded it with a kind of fierce confidence. She tucked her thumbs into her belt and frowned at him. “…That’s me.”

“How would you like to go home?”

Allison shrugged. “Earth? No thanks.”

Kirk hit a mental wall. He hadn’t anticipated a straightforward ‘no’ at all. Suspicion and questions maybe, but simply being turned down wasn’t a contingency for which he had planned.

“You… would not?”

Allison shrugged again. “What’s there for me? You know what I used to do on Earth? I fixed bikes and cars, I served coffee, and guys used to stare at my ass. No thanks.”

“…Oh.”

“Why d’you ask, anyway?” she inquired, and Kirk finally managed to place her accent. Boston. “What, you got a ship full of humans you’re taking back home?”

“Yes, actually. Though, you are only the second I have found.”

“Yeah? Shit, you’re a regular good Samaritan, ain’tcha?”

“I suppose…” Kirk agreed.

Allison gave him a long, calculating, discomforting stare and then shrugged again. “Okay. I’m in.”

It was Brelm’s turn to be wrong-footed. He gaped at her. “You… what? You can’t leave, you have a contract!”

Allison laughed. “Brelm, if you can find some asshole on this station who could stop me then go hire them for your bodyguard instead. Being your hired muscle was getting dull anyway.”

She had a gun on her hip, Kirk noted. An actual human firearm. How had she acquired one so far from Earth? Had she had it on her when she was abducted, or had she somehow built one?

However she’d done it, the “friendly” way she rested her hand on that weapon drove the point home for Brelm.

“You-! …Fine. But our contract is void and you forfeit the rest of this cycle’s pay.”

“You never paid me enough anyway,” Allison ambled across the room. “So what’s your name, mister Samaritan?”

“Most humans call me Kirk.”

Allison shook his hand. “Nice to meetcha, Kirk. Let’s go find some folks who want to go home.”

++

“Miss Boone. A pleasure to meet in the flesh at last.”

Terri didn’t know what she had expected from Mr. Johnson exactly, and really, he lived up to that lack of expectation. He was a dapper, handsome man of about fifty years, with a grey-flecked beard, grey-flecked hair and grey- flecked eyes, wearing a tailored charcoal suit and grey socks. The kind of guy she’d have happily picked up in a hotel bar if she was in the mood for a couple of nights with an older, wealthier man, but no long-term entanglements. He had that curiously accentless voice too, that gave nothing away about where in the world he had been born.

Still, she shook his hand, prepared for - and duly receiving - the circulation-halting firm grip of a man who shook hands for a living.

She was immediately convinced that, whoever he really was, Mr. Johnson was not actually her client. If he turned out not to be a proxy for the real deal, then she would have happily eaten her treasured Chamonix sweatshirt.

Not that this suspicion bothered her much. The amount of money on show meant that frankly the client could have contacted her via strippergram for all Terri cared.

“It’s been a pleasure getting paid.” she said, deciding that playing along with the politeness game could go shove it. “What’s the new job?”

Johnson didn’t seem fazed in the least by this blunt approach, and simply handed her a folder. She flicked through it, seeing names and faces but not bothering to really examine them. One stood out, however.

“Hey, I recognize her. She was that film student who went missing from Vancouver a few days before the attack, right?”

Mr. Johnson smiled the thin-lipped professional smile of somebody who was being paid far more to smile thin-lipped professional smiles at her than she was being paid to receive them. “Xiu Chang, yes. Based on the information you recovered from the abductees, it seems likely that she was abducted herself. The others in that dossier are similar cases, most from this country, a few others from elsewhere in the world.”

“You want me to look around, try and find some more?” Terri asked.

“You have it exactly. That dossier should provide a template for the sort of thing we’re after. Circumstances, factors common to all abductees, and so on.”

“And for this you’re offering me…?”

“A million dollars, Miss Boone. The dramatic turn that events have taken recently means that we’re keen for this to be done with the utmost expediency.”

We, Terri noted. Her sweatshirt was definitely safe.

“I don’t usually say this to the man with the cash.” she said, carefully. “But… why? Everyone knows that the best working theory for the Darkening so far is that there’s some kind of barrier up around the whole solar system. If these people are outside it, then what’s the rush in finding them? What good is that information?”

“And if they’re wrong, Miss Boone?”

“Are they?”

“That’s hardly relevant.”

“True, it’s not, really. After all even without a giant force field imprisoning us, it’s not like we’ve got hyperspace or whatever, so while I’m grateful for clients who pay so well, I do wonder why you want to spend so much on getting this done “with expediency”.”

“And you will continue to do so, I fear. You understand the assignment?”

Terri sighed. “Chase up on missing persons cases that match the profile of these apparent abductions, report them back to you as I find them, for which I will receive a million dollars.” she said.

“Precisely. It is always a pleasure to do business with a professional, Miss Boone.”

“Sure.” Terri replied. “A pleasure.”

Johnson waited a minute or so after she was gone and then stood, unlocked the side door to his office, and stepped through.

There was a coffin-sized metal-and-glass object along one wall of that room, and the being within - small, naked, grey-skinned, large-eyed and bulbous- headed, stared out at him lazily from where it floated in a gel bath inside.

“She agreed.” he said.

“Good. She is just the right mix of clever and mercenary. An excellent find.”

“Thank you, sir. She does, however, raise a very good point. Exactly what good will this information do us?”

“The more we know about who’s out there, the more I can assist the being who’s tracking them down. I didn’t come here to live out the rest of my life on a pre-warp deathtrap of a planet, Johnson. I want to go home.”

The Corti approximated a grim smile. “I want that barrier down.”

++

Maria Sadowski didn’t know what to make of anything. She had got used to the idea of alien life, got used to scavenging whatever scraps they could be bothered to deign to kick her way. Her ribs and bones were visible everywhere, her gums bled constantly, and the sores just wouldn’t heal.

And then just like that, the attitude had changed. One minute, she was ignored by aloof creatures who barely deigned to acknowledge her at all, now they saw her and walked across the other side of the transitway. If she went into an eating-house to beg, before she had been lucky to get scraps - now she got as much as she could stuff into herself while around her tables vacated and the owner carried itself in a way that suggested that, if its species could sweat and if that sweat meant what it meant in humans, it would have been sweating.

She hadn’t had enough time to figure out why when she heard the first recognizable word to fall on her ears in months.

“Maria?”

It was an alien. one of the tall white ones with too many legs, though those were usually friendly. Behind it - him? - stood two humans honest-to-god humans. A tall blonde woman who could only be an American with a belt buckle like that, and a shorter, browner man who gave her a nervous smile.

She didn’t care that neither of them looked like they spoke a word of Polish, right now it was enough just to see somebody the right size, with the right number of limbs, eyes, fingers…

Weeping, she slammed into the man at a dead run and hugged him tight, oblivious to the way nearby beings stepped back in alarm at the solid sound their dense deathworlder bodies made. He made awkward comforting noises and rubbed her back.

The American woman put a hand on the shoulder and said something. They obviously had a translator or something, because Maria heard and understood every word. “She’s in a bad way, Kirk.”

‘Kirk’ shook his mane out and ignored the comment. Instead, he put his own hand on Maria’s other shoulder and spoke softly. “Do not worry. Everything will be alright now, Maria. You are going home.”

++

“Extraordinary guy.” Dr. Sung commented, once Jenkins had agreed to go under an fMRI scanner and departed with the medical technicians and biologists.

Tremblay made a strained noise. “Seems like a bad case of PTSD to me. Not that I’m an expert.”

Sung had the trademark dry humour of psychologists everywhere. “Well, speaking as an expert, I don’t agree with that diagnosis.” He said. “I think he’s just naturally a cynic and maybe had a few bad experiences. Besides, he actually makes a valid point.”

“Don’t tell me he’s turned you into a misanthrope too?”

“Confidentially? I think he’s the opposite of a misanthrope. The impression I got is that he’s the kind of man who’s a bit too driven by his compassion. But step back and think about it for a second. Personally, I believe his account, which means that he’s more or less the only man on Earth to have the chance of really getting to know what it’s like out there - apparently only a handful of the rest ever got that translation implant, and none of them were out there for as long.”

Tremblay leaned against a table and folded his arms. “Meaning?”

“Meaning he knows how ET thinks. He’s got a bit more of an outsider’s perspective than the rest of us. Maybe the reason he’s so bitter on the species is because he can see what they see in us." He smiled uncomfortably. “It’s notoriously difficult for people to acknowledge stuff like that.”

“True. Self-deception’s a powerful thing.” Tremblay said, helping himself to a mug of the coffee that had been percolating in the corner of the lab since they arrived. Sung flipped through the document the pilgrimage had assembled.

“Which means by extension that self-awareness is a powerful thing too.” he said. “The whole world has been going over the question of why an alien civilization would bottle us up, and really the answer’s so obvious when you look at it from Jenkins’ perspective. We’ve been quarantined and the only reason to quarantine something is because it’s dangerous."

Tremblay sipped his coffee, and poked around the lab, pausing at a sample of alien bone that was attached to a detailed report on its composition, strength, density and toughness - all depressingly inferior to the human norm, to judge by a summary of percentages that ran down one side of the page. “I suppose it’s hard to argue with that.” he mused. “Hmm.. hand me that notepad a second, would you?”

Sung did so, and availed himself of the coffee as well while the general flipped through the contents of the Abductee handbook, logged on to the lab’s computer and watched the footage from Rogers Arena, referring back to the notepad several times.

“Something up, sir?” he asked.

“Just… looking at things from a military perspective.”

Tremblay picked up a pen and tapped the screen with the reverse end. “See here? The way they exit those pods.”

“What about it?”

“It’s not aggressive enough.” Tremblay said. when Sung raised an eyebrow and gestured a need for more information, he stood up and put down his coffee. “Okay, so when a soldier enters a hostile area full of known threats, they move like this…"

Miming holding a gun, he barged forward, pretend weapon tucked tight into his shoulder and pointed almost along his sightline, weight forward, posture loose but coiled, ready to spring in any direction as danger demanded. Sung blinked and the general was half-way through dropping some virtual targets with a volley of precise shots. The burst of simulated violence lasted no more than a second or two before he relaxed again.

“Bear in mind that I’ve not done that for real in about ten years, and I’m fifty-one years old. I’ve slowed down a lot. But you get the idea - aggression. You throw yourself into the fight economically and efficiently - little movements, big effect, make the best possible use of the moment of surprise.” Tremblay told him. “Now the aliens moved like this…"

Despite being deficient two pairs of legs, Tremblay’s imitation of the beasts on the screen was uncanny. This time, the posture was upright and proud, the invisible gun held awkwardly level with his solar plexus and out away from his body. His progress across the room was notably slower, more like arrogant strutting than a hostile rush, and his “weapon” was much slower to aim. Everything looked more sluggish, less precise, less deadly compared to the study in focused violence that had preceded it.

“I follow.” Sung nodded.

“Yep. But then we get to… here…" Tremblay clicked forward in the footage to the point where one of the players swept in and smashed one of the aliens to the ice with his hockey stick. Obviously panicked though they were, as the remaining Hunters drew together in a defensive circle, their posture changed as well, into a stance much more like the one the general had first demonstrated - compact, focused, precise.

“That did them no good of course, but it shows that they at least know how to do things properly, so the question is, why weren’t they moving like that in the first place?”

“You have a theory there?” Sung asked him.

“I do. And it’s one that bears out Jenkins’ account of these things being the boogeymen of interstellar space. They practically swaggered out of those pods as if it didn’t matter if they did things the right way or not, like they seriously believed they were invulnerable." Tremblay picked up his coffee again. “They got cocky.”

“Does that scare you?”

Tremblay shrugged, shaking his head very slightly with a wide-eyed expression. “I don’t know what to feel, yet. I’ve not had first-hand experience or years to get my head around the idea. It just doesn’t seem real, somehow.”

They sat in silence for a while, Sung sensing that the general was in the mood for a little peace and quiet, and content to give it to him. Eventually, both their meandering trains of thought were brought back to the here-and-now when Jenkins returned with the scientists.

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know the fMRI corroborated my account.” Jenkins said.

Tremblay accepted the summary and afforded it a quick reading.

“Fine. I think I’m convinced” he said. “But interesting as all of this is, the information’s a bit academic, isn’t it?”

“Yep.” Jenkins agreed. “But I wanted to make sure you’d got your heads around a few things before I dropped the real surprise on you."

“Which is?”

Jenkins grinned, and retrieved the battered hiking pack he’d been carrying when he first arrived at the base. Buried at the bottom under his spare shirts and underwear was a padded manila envelope, which he presented to the general.

Tremblay opened it and tipped its contents out onto his hand - a small, featureless silver box, about the size of a hard drive. The only feature of note on its surface was what appeared to be a power socket on one end, though not of a make that Tremblay recognised.

They all leaned closer, jaws dropping. Sung broke the silence, though only barely. “Is this…?”

Jenkins’ grin would have put the Cheshire Cat to shame. “Alien, yep. I managed to get my hands on it while working in a ship salvage yard on Freeport Fifty- Two. Smuggled it back to Earth when the observation team finally agreed to strip out my implants and bring me home.”

“What is it?”

The spacefarer’s smile broadened even further.

“This, gentlemen… is an FTL engine.”

Chapter 7
5.5: Ultimatum | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Author’s Note: While I think this interlude stands on its own, it was written in response to the events described in Rantarian’s “[Salvage: Positions of Pow er](http://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/2jepu0/ocjenkinsverse_positions_of_po wer/) and you may benefit from reading that series up until then first.

By long tradition, the Alpha of Alphas’ place of repose during a Grand Conclave of the Broods was atop the skull of a Vulza. This was not an inherited throne - Hunters did not recognise inherited authority, they recognized only the skilled and tenacious. The Alpha of Alphas therefore rested upon the skull of a Vulza it had personally slain. To their culture and psychology, there could be no better indication of fitness to lead.

It accepted a cup from its personal meat-slave as it listened. For now, it was patient. It had found, over the long years of incumbency, that the patient stalker that surveyed the land, watched its prey and set its trap, could succeed at tasks that the brash predator that simply attacked and counted on its own superiority would be crushed by. Best to let the lesser Alphas bicker and argue and make their declarations and then strike when the meat was sweetest.

Usually. As it listened, as still and patient as the day it had ambushed and slain the Vulza whose skull it now straddled, the burgeoning susurrus as more of the Alphas arrived and added their thoughts to the debate turned first into a roar, then a mental cacophony of Alphas all broadcasting at once. Isolating individual words was impossible, and in any case not necessary - each thought was accompanied by a set of emotional tags, qualifying sentiments to convey the full emotional weight of what its articulator had meant, rather than merely what it had said. The result was a blizzard of emotion swirling around the trophy-hung Conclave chamber, its intensity swelling with each pass.

Ten brood-transports. A thousand hunters. All sent to kill a single human: all dead. The shock and dismay was palpable.

Alpha of Alphas decided that the time had come to settle the Brood of Broods.

It broadcast: +<Impatience; anger; command> ENOUGH!+

The mental noise ceased. Lingering emotions hung on the air like brittle harmonics.

It broadcast: +<Resolve; statement> These new things have stolen what is rightfully ours. They have stolen the fear of the Herd. They have slain five broods of our finest hunters. <Declaration; resignation> I name them Predators, the first species we have known that is not prey.+

Barely-suppressed shock rippled through the minds of the gathered Alphas, but Alpha of Alphas noted the undercurrent: lack of surprise. It was gratifying to know that at least some of the gathered Broods were led by hunters that could see the future pattern of things so acutely.

It broadcast: +<Statement> There can be only one Predator.+

Only one of the senior and most respected Alphas, leader of the Marrow-Gnaw brood, dared respond to that.

It broadcast: +<Agreement; frustration; Query> The Alpha of Alphas has the truth of it. Yet it has not offered an explanation for how the barrier around their world may be bypassed. The humans are beyond our grasp. Must our vengeance wait until that obstacle is destroyed?"

The Alpha of Alphas acknowledged the point with a gracious tilt of its head, away from the Marrow-Gnaw - a gesture of respect.

It broadcast: +<Rebuttal> The Herd erected that barrier, the Herd will be coerced into lowering it.+

Several others broadcast at once: +<query> How?+

The Alpha of Alphas did not answer them immediately. It instead turned to the meat-slave, which cowered at his attention, naked and wretched as was appropriate.

It was pleasing to the Hunter sense of morality, and to their unique sense of poetry, that a meat-slave should be young and female. As such, young females only just entering their breeding age were prized meat-slaves, reserved as tokens of prestige for only the most powerful Alphas. To devour the Prey was Right: to symbolically devour the future of the prey was Righteous. It was a gesture of supremacy, an enactment of the reality that the Predators held the true power. It was also a test of wisdom - to glut on and waste the future of the Herd might be to deprive the future of the Hunters in turn.

The Alpha of Alphas extended a claw, and hooked the slave gently under her jaw bone, dragging her forward by the delicate exposed tissues of the throat. She was a fur-face, scarcely a morsel to a Hunter of the Alpha of Alphas’ size, but the newness and novelty of their species - and thus their rareness among the meat-stock - only served to enhance her value.

The Alpha of Alphas vocalized, speaking in sound waves for the benefit of the quivering being which did not have the Brood-Mind implants.

It said: “You have served well, Meat.” the word “meat” rippled backwards along its jaw as a wave of cruel teeth, and the slave shook on the point of its claw. “I grant you a boon. What would you request of me?”

The slave closed her eyes and squeaked her reply, in the proper respectful form. “If it may please the master of masters, I humbly request that my death be painless.”

It dragged her closer, and she rose on to the very tips of her little paws, standing as tall as her species could, to resist the talon that threatened to open her flesh.

“Your boon is… denied, little one.” the Alpha of Alphas told her, and relished her sob, relished its power over her. “I grant you what you truly crave - your freedom.”

The slave practically fell over then and there, but remained upright still teetering to avoid the cruel point that was dimpling the flesh of her throat.

“…F… freedom, Master of Masters?” He was pleased to see that the light of hope in her eyes was dim. This prey knew not to rejoice until the meat was in the maw, at least.

It released her, and she collapsed, grovelling before it.

“You will be granted a trophy, a ship of the Herd species. You will fly it back to the territory of the Herd, and you will thank me for your life by delivering a message.” It declared.

The slave contrived to bow even lower than she already was, striving to dig into the solid stone of the Conclave chamber. “Command me, master of masters.”

The Alpha of Alphas checked that it had the rapt attention of its subordinates, and broadcast its next words with the full force of command and proclamation that it could project.

“Tell them that any place known to harbour a human will be raided, not by a pack-ship, nor even a brood-transport, but by the Swarm of Swarms.” it said. “Tell them that any such place will be destroyed, any Prey that lived there devoured. If it is a world, it will be poisoned. If it is an orbit, it will be seeded with mines. Tell them that I shall lead every such raid personally. Tell them that, once there are no humans left abroad in the galaxy, we shall begin the Hunt of Hunts, culling and consuming all that we find until such time as the barrier around Earth is removed.”

It paused. “And tell them that we shall only be satisfied to return to our quiescence once the humans are all devoured. Tell them that the Hunters WILL be feared above all others.”

The prey-slave could not hear it, but in its mind, the combined shout of ten thousand Alphas was deafening, despite containing no words. It was just a simple emotion.

+<APPROVAL>+

++

Poker continued to give Kirk problems.

Memorizing the values and suits of the cards had been trivial. Memorizing those combinations which were valid for Poker and their hierarchy of value, simple. Memorizing the bidding rules, easy.

Learning to read the possible combinations that every player at the table might potentially have held had been something of a challenge, but he had mastered it

Doing all of that AND trying to make snap decisions about the relative value of his own hand compared to every other player’s while simultaneously attempting to both mislead them and avoid being misled by them was where things descended into the downright hard. His sole advantage was that he had a cybernetic translator assisting him in reading their expressions and body language, while his own remained impenetrable and alien to the humans.

Or so he hoped. That particular theory was starting to look a little shaky given that his bluff had been successfully called four times in a row now, and while he did have two pair, Nines and Queens, the river card had opened up the possibility of a full house.

Would they suspect that he was bluffing again? It wasn’t a weak hand, and only the possibility of a full house after all….

“All in.” he decided, pushing his last few meager chips into the middle.

Maria was looking much better for her time aboard Sanctuary. She’d been able to get some proper nutrition and vitamin supplements, exercise properly, and have an actual social life with interpersonal interaction thanks to the translator she now wore constantly on her wrist.

She was also terrifyingly good at cards, which was why her expression didn’t so much as flicker as she considered Kirk’s move before pushing part of her own, much larger stack into the middle.

“Call.”

She turned out to have two pair - threes and Queens, and Kirk allowed himself a subtle gesture of relief as he collected the pot. He was still in the game.

They had dealt the next hand and Kirk had thrown in the little blind when there was a soft but obtrusive chime that rang through the whole ship. The four humans at the table all looked around bemused at the sound, but Kirk was already standing up when Amir - who had refused to join the game on the grounds that gambling was Haram, forbidden by his religion, called through from the flight deck, where he was learning how to fly the ship with the aid of the simulator systems that Kirk had installed for that very purpose.

“Uh… Kirk?”

The rising, querying note in his voice was one that Kirk knew from long movie nights indicated alarm, warning and an urgent need to draw his attention to something. He was quite impressed with himself that he even managed to beat the other humans to the front of the ship.

Amir was examining one of the most important devices on the ship as they entered. “What’s this thing again?” he asked.

Kirk gritted his teeth. The unit in question was one of the most recognizable on the ship, as it looked almost aggressively low-tech compared to everything else on the flight deck. It had no volumetric projection, no tactile gesture interface, just buttons and a simple, hardy text box designed to weather anything up to and including the destruction of the ship itself.

“The Dominion Emergency Notification System” Kirk told him. “Every Dominion ship has one.”

Inside the device, a handful of Helium ions had ceased to be entangled with another handful stored at the network’s central repository. Centuries of experimentation had finally found a loophole in the principle that quantum- entanglement could not carry information - namely, that it was possible to tell whether or not a particle was in an entangled state and, by breaking that entanglement, send a single bit of data. The process of creating such entangled pairs in useful quantities was hideously expensive, and so the system was used only to send terse and urgent messages that needed to be known immediately by every Dominion ship everywhere, no matter where it might be or what it might be doing.

This particular message read:

ULTIMATUM FROM HUNTERS: DEMAND ALL HUMANS BE TURNED OVER ELSE QUOTE SWARM OF SWARMS ENDQUOTE WILL RAID KNOWN HUMAN LOCATIONS. ALL SHIPS, STATIONS CARRYING HUMAN PASSENGERS ADVISED: JETTISON IMMEDIATELY. NOTIFICATION ENDS.

There was a long, shocked silence, broken finally by Allison.

She spoke quietly and her voice was choked with emotion, but the one that dripped from it like deadly acid was contempt.

“Those cowardly sons of bitches.”

Chapter 8
Chapter 06: “Taking Back The Sky” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

One year and seven months after the Vancouver Attack

One broadcast: +<awe; respect; statement> The Alpha-of-Alphas is here.+

Another broadcast: +<anticipation; glee; eagerness> The first human meat to the Alpha-of-Alpha’s maw!+

The Alpha-of-Alphas broadcast: +<rebuke> The quarry is dangerous. Remain focused.+

Chastened, the Brood-Guard fell into line respectfully around and behind the Alpha-of-Alphas as it emerged from its vessel. It stood nearly a head taller than even the largest of the lesser Alphas, and had undergone yet more extensive cybernetic upgrades, bonding all manner of arcane technology - reputedly of its own design - into its own flesh. The result was a mountain of metal and seething power, with seven blinking eyes gazing balefully out at the world of prey around it, covering all the angles, never resting.

Despite its size and bulk, the Alpha-of-Alphas moved in almost perfect stalking silence, a display of its long experience and skill as an apex predator. Without further communication, the Guardian Brood followed their master as it pursued the most recent contact report.

They paused as the lights flickered, and an instant later the deck heaved and rang to another impact - a stray shot from the battle in the void outside. The Dominion’s vessels were selling themselves dearly, even self-destructing rather than accept capture and the fate of all prey. But this was the first time the Swarm-of-Swarms had shown itself, and not even a third of it was committed to the battle. most was still cloaked, on standby for the event that Dominion reinforcements should arrive. By the decree of Alpha-of-Alphas, the Hunters were yet to show their full strength. That third, however, was still many thousands of ships, and the defenders had either fled or were being swept aside in their suicidal bid to protect the station for as long as possible.

The part inside found their quarry when a Brood-lesser tumbled into the corridor before them, crushed and broken, dead before it had stopped sliding.

The Alpha-of-Alphas broadcast: +<command> Release the drones.+

They did so, a swarm of insect-sized devices that would record what happened next and inject the footage directly onto the prey’s data networks. This, they knew, would prove to the prey beyond any doubt whom they should most be fearing.

The microdrones zipped up and out, retreating to the corners and ceiling of the room the dead Hunter had been thrown from, and then The Alpha-of-Alphas stalked through the door.

++

Caleb wouldn’t admit it, but he was starting to get scared. The children were hiding in a storage locker behind him, and so far he’d kicked the ass of every white freak that had come for him, even ten at a time. But he was tired - exhausted, even. Punch-drunk from so many of those weak-ass ray guns, floating in a shaky sea of stale adrenaline, bleeding from his nose and ears, bruised over practically every inch of his body, he still willed himself to stand up and face the next monster that came to challenge him.

This one, unusually, came alone. It was larger than the others, and armour- plated. It did not, however, seem to be carrying one of those pulse guns. Caleb was no idiot - he wasn’t about to assume that the monster was unarmed, and he doubted that he could have got past that armour when at his peak, let alone now. He could see the writing on the wall, and felt strangely at peace because of it.

“Time to die, huh?” he asked the monster, which surprised him by growling a reply in English. it actually spoke the English, too, he could tell the difference.

"Yesth. Ti-ime to die. M-eat to the m-aw." it said.

“Fuck you.” Caleb told it.

He charged.

The alien raised its arm, aimed at the ground in front of him and fired, once.

He died.

++

The Alpha-of-Alphas broadcast: +<Satisfaction> The builders are to be commended. These nervejam grenade launchers work exactly as anticipated.+

The servos of its powered exoskeleton whined as it picked up the dead human by the back of his neck. The quarry seemed even heavier in death - the co- ordination and balance that had kept it upright and agile during his life was gone now, replaced by a few lingering twitches as the last jolts of the Nervejam effect rampaged around that delicately-optimized masterwork of a nervous system. All that was left was a mass of meat and bone as heavy as the Alpha-of-Alphas itself was even in its exoskeleton, and a fraction of the size.

No matter. The Prize awaited. Its helmet dismantled itself, dissolving into a swarm of construction nanites that crawled back into their hive at the nape of the Alpha-of-Alpha’s neck. It considered its limp prize for a second, and then opened its jaws as wide as they would go, bit into the human’s throat with all the strength it could muster, and - with some effort - ripped free a mouthful.

The meat was indescribable. Dense, lean, rich, full of that indefinable spark of sentience. It exceeded even the Alpha-of-Alpha’s most extravagant fantasies.

+<ecstasy> MEAT TO THE MAW!!!+

the cry was taken up among the brood, it spread to the swarm, and from there to the Swarm-of-Swarms and through them, every Hunter in the Galaxy.

The first Great Hunt had been successful.

Two years and Five Months after the Vancouver attack

Captain Rylee Jackson. It was a good name, and she hoped that people would remember it, and for the right reasons. She hoped that she would be remembered for earning this mission on skill and merit, rather than being sneered at as a diplomatic bit of political correctness, given the job just because she was a black woman.

It was a crazy mission. She’d gone to church, said her prayers, prepared herself as best she could. There was a non-zero chance that things could go horribly wrong, but all test pilots knew that. You just had to trust your sled.

“Houston, Pandora. Final checklist complete." she intoned, her tone steadier than she felt.

“Copy Pandora. There’s no window here, Rylee, so just go whenever you’re ready for it." She knew that her flight operator down in Houston was probably just as scared as she was, but there was that voice, the calm and steady one that said everything, no matter how dramatic, with perfect clarity and confidence. She knew that even if she disintegrated in a few seconds, that professional tone would never crack. She could become a smear of plasma across half the heavens, and add her name to the victims of humanity’s odyssey, and that voice would coldly describe her demise as a “malfunction”.

In its way, that was comforting.

“Houston, Pandora… Let’s take back the sky."

She allowed herself a smile of triumph at not repeating Armstrong’s mistake and choking on her big quote. Still congratulating herself, she pressed the button. Two seconds and a billion kilometers later, with a ferociously ecstatic whoop, Rylee Jackson entered the history books as the first human being to outrun light.

Jenkins’ bar erupted. The entirety of the Scotch Creek base staff had crowded in to watch the moment when their two years of hard work had paid off, and paid off it had, in style. From Claude Nadeau’s breakthroughs in electrostatic field emitters that had allowed Pandora to fly on gargantuan weightless wings of pure force-field and boost itself into space for a fraction of the expense required by a traditional rocket, to Ted Bartlett unravelling the secrets of spacetime field distortion technology and inventing a distortion drive that actually worked on a reasonable budget of energy, without any awkward relativistic time dilation and without ripping apart the sun in the process.

General Tremblay smiled indulgently as the crowd of ecstatic scientists formed a circle with their arms around each other’s shoulders and launched into a drunken, cacophonous rendition of “We Are the Champions”.

“Heck of a day.”

He turned to Kevin Jenkins, who had been the one to start the song on the bar’s music system. He had fit into the base perfectly, falling comfortably into his niche as the Scotch Creek Research Facility’s resident purveyor of alcohol, caffeine, filling food and televised sports matches. Probably two- thirds of the major breakthroughs at the base had taken place over coffee and bacon cheeseburgers at the bar’s increasingly-scuffed wooden tables.

“Heck of a day.” Tremblay agreed, trying to make it sound like his heart was in it. Jenkins just handed him another coffee - black, two sugars - with an expression that said he could see straight through the general’s attempt at positivity. He was as bad as Dr. Sung sometimes.

“Shitty time for a divorce, general.” Jenkins said.

Check that. Jenkins could be far, far worse than the doctor sometimes. He didn’t have a professional code of conduct stopping him from being blunt.

“How… how did you guess?”

“Doesn’t take a rocket surgeon.” Jenkins told him. “You’ve been sitting there staring at your wedding band looking like you took a dump and found a kidney in the bowl.”

“Is there such a thing as a good time for a divorce?" Tremblay asked.

Jenkins thought about it. “When you wake up the morning after a night out on Vegas and there’s a shaved orang-utan in your bed?”

Tremblay couldn’t resist it: he laughed. Jenkins gave a satisfied nod. “how long were you married?” he asked.

“Ten years. Stefan’s a great guy and I love him so much it hurts, but… y’know, he wanted me to retire and adopt a couple of kids with him. But then Rogers Arena, this base…” Tremblay sipped his coffee as he trailed off.

“Life happens, man.” Jenkins told him. “At least it’s not boring. Be a whole lot worse for you if you were moping around at home lovesick and not knowing what to do with yourself.”

“True. At least I can focus on my work…” Tremblay smiled at that, his first genuine smile of the day, as he looked at the big-screen on the wall, where mission control at Houston was just starting to settle down from its jubilation and get back to work. “And we did good today, didn’t we?”

“You did damn good, man.” Jenkins said. “Sure, that kid Jackson’s the name everyone will remember, but she’d never have got up there without you. Hell, it was you persuaded the treaty members to unify their space programs. I guarantee that Pandora would never have been funded without that."

Tremblay nodded, and put his drink down. “Thanks, Kevin. I needed that.”

“Anytime, Martin.”

“She has been in there for <two months> now. We think she managed to tap into a water pipe and from the smell she maybe even set up a Dizi Rat farm in there. And she refuses to come out."

“Would you, when the galactic news is full of members of your species being thrown out of the airlock?”

“Look we weren’t going to do that. We were just going to… you know, evict her. Give her a little ship and some nutrient spheres and point her towards a nice Class Eleven somewhere. She’s from a Class Twelve, right? She should have no problem surviving there."

Kirk issued the equivalent of a frustrated sigh. Like all Rrrrtktktkp’ch, he was fond of his Vz’ktk cousins, but they really were as dense as a bag of gold sometimes.

“I did some research on this one. She used to sell insurance before the Corti took her. She used to sit in an office with a headset on talking to people over audio-comms. On her days off, she used to fashion garments out of spun animal hair, and went swimming in a heated, disinfected pool. She may be native of a Class Twelve but frankly I think she might have starved to death on a Class Six.” he said. A thought struck him and he chuckled. “They abducted her on the way home from that pool, actually. Think she knows where her towel is?”

“Her…Towel? Uh… I don’t… nobody ever…”

“In-joke. Never mind.” It was hard being a fan of human literature sometimes.

“…Okay? Well. I don’t know how you’re going to get her out of there, nobody can fit in there except maybe for a Gaoian or Corti, and even if they could, she’s human. She broke a security officer’s leg accidentally!"

“Oh, it’s okay. I think she just needs to see a friendly face.”

The Vz’ktk security officer looked up as the door cycled to admit Maria, Amir and Allison, the latter of whom flipped a jaunty mock salute to the stunned officer before she and Amir stooped slightly and presented their linked hands to boost Maria up into the open ventilation duct below which Kirk and the officer had been conversing. A second later, Amir boosted Allison up into the vent as well, and then leaned against the wall and waited, watching the tall blue being with that unsettling binocular gaze that seemed to flicker all over him, taking in every detail.

“You brought more?!"

“Several.” Kirk said, secretly enjoying himself. “Don’t worry, they’ve all got disease suppression implants.”

“But.. don’t you know how dangerous…?"

“Who, them or the Hunters? They’re nice people. A little strange, some of them, and I really can’t tell if that’s because of the isolation or if that’s how they always were, but trust me, every single one’s as moral and good- natured a being as you could wish to meet. And the Hunters don’t have the first clue my little flying sanctuary exists, so far as we know. Besides, if this goes as well as it usually does, she’ll be on board among her own kind and we’ll be gone soon enough.”

“Sanctuary. You’re… keeping them safe?”

Kirk nodded. “Somebody has to take care of the poor little monsters when the galaxy’s losing its mind.” he said.

There was a scuffle from the vents, announcing Allison and Maria’s return. Behind them was Abigail, the woman they had come to rescue. She dropped lightly to the deck in the - for her - light gravity, shot the officer a glare that wished it could be as deadly as the rest of her, and shook hands with Amir, who extended a friendly arm to invite her back to the ship.

Kirk was secretly delighted to notice that she had a large beige towel draped over her shoulders.

“See? Problem solved. Now you can put out the word that your station is a human-free zone and the Great Hunt will pass you by, hmm?”

He said it lightly, but there was an accusatory edge to the apparently benign observation. He regretted it when the officer wilted slightly, and reminded himself that it wasn’t the poor young male’s fault - he was just following orders, in a job not dissimilar to the one Kirk himself had held only a few years ago.

On a whim he decided to repair things and sent a small currency gift to the officer’s personal network.

“Here. Get yourself some tllktrrk’nq or something. My treat. You’ll get in touch if any more humans show up?"

The officer offered a defeated gesture of assent. “Sure. Yes. I will.”

“Good. Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.”

He swept from the room. Behind him, the pressure of sheer charm that he’d been keeping up the whole time slowly deflated, and the security officer recovered himself enough to glance at his personal funds, the ceiling vent, and the door.

“What the sh’rrt." he muttered.

++

“Okay, I’ve seen some fast-talking in my time, but you had that guy just swallowing every word you said within seconds of meeting him.” Allison commented during the walk back to the Sanctuary. “How’d you do that?”

“Vz’ktk have an instinctive respect for the judgement and intelligence of my own species.” Kirk explained. “All you have to do is keep talking in an amiable ‘I know everything about everything’ tone of voice and they’ll agree to sell you their sister if you keep it up long enough.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Exaggerating.” Kirk allowed. “but they really do grow up with the idea that we’re the smart ones. That builds a degree of innate respect and trust.”

The Sanctuary had been modified yet again since the Hunter Ultimatum, growing three rings of cabins that encircled the reactor, enough for four times its current population. Given that they were sized for the average species, they were huge by human standards - the beds large and luxurious, with plenty of room for floor exercises. Kirk had permanently set the gravity, temperature and pressure on those decks to mimic sea level on Earth, and left the human passengers to their own devices.

That ultimatum had made Kirk’s job much easier. Ships, bases and stations across the inhabited galaxy had scrambled to appease the Hunters, and the humans living aboard them had understandably reacted to protect themselves. Finding abductees was now as simple as following the requests for military support from the Dominion’s naval forces.

And of course, the humans they found were more than happy to leave. Showing up with three friendly homo sapiens and sharing the name of the ship seemed to be pretty much all it took, now. The most time-consuming part was all the traveling.

Still, in two years they had averaged slightly less than one new rescue a month. Too many times they had arrived to find the human they were chasing had already left. A few times, they’d arrived to find their sought refugee had been gassed, or had their hidey-hole depressurized.

One station’s overseer admitted that they had resorted to Nervejam, and Allison caught Maria’s wrist just in time. If that grief-driven slap had connected…

The station’s overseer still got an up-close and personal introduction to the wrong end of Allison’s pistol, however, and a personal promise that there would be a reckoning someday.

The whole ship had been in a subdued mood for several days after that incident. They’d held a “wake,” a kind of bawdy funeral service. Kirk hadn’t joined in. Twenty-two humans throwing a party to help themselves feel alive in the face of futility and pointless death was more than even he could handle.

Three of the twenty-two - twenty-three, now - only rarely showed their faces, preferring to lurk up in the cabins and avoid him. The rest were happy to spend time in the large recreational area, playing games, watching movies, or just hanging out and talking. He was pretty sure there was a fair amount of sex going on in the cabins, too: months or years of isolation without seeing others of their own kind had left many of the refugees with unresolved tensions that they were vigorously and gladly resolving.

Kirk had first started researching human sexuality long ago when the Observatory was first established. What he found had initially disturbed him, and then later made him jealous. Among his own kind, the point of reproduction was reproduction. It brought emotional fulfilment and intellectual pleasure to carry out the act of continuing the species, and the act itself was reportedly pleasantly intimate and had some enjoyable sensations. Kirk didn’t know first- hand, having fathered no children.

For Humans, however, the act itself seemed to bring intense physical pleasure, as well as considerable emotional satisfaction and positive social repercussions. Like everything the species did, there were conflicting norms and etiquettes everywhere. There was a stigma to having no sex and a stigma to having too much. There was a stigma to having never had sex, and a stigma to having it prior to engaging in a legal bond-partnership. There was a stigma to sex with members of the same sex - and the fact that this was even an option had been a source of major confusion for Kirk at first - and yet most humans seemed to be to some extent inclined to bisexuality.

Then there were gender identities: ones that correlated with the biological sexes, ones the directly opposed them, and gender identities that had nothing to do with either of the available biological options at all.

The whole thing was bewildering and strange, but also exciting, and made Kirk feel a little envious. He had long since realized that for all their physical impressiveness and mental agility, humans were still just as fragile as anybody else in their own ways. To learn that they had a whole type of pleasure available to them which Kirk would never be able to experience for himself felt a little unfair.

He was wondering how it had helped them survive the conditions on Earth when his train of thought was interrupted by a call from the ship. He had left Lewis in charge of the ship’s sensors and comms.

“Kirk man, uh… like, we just got some pretty big news, dude.”

Lewis was… interesting. They’d picked him up at a Corti research facility on a barren planet that officially had no name but which Lewis insisted was called ‘Kerbin’ on the grounds that he’d been the first to name it. Although he’d originally been taken there as a test subject, his ‘escape’ had apparently consisted of amiably disabling the forcefield on his containment cell before letting himself into the lab to explore some avenues of research that his abductors hadn’t even considered. He was the only one on the crew who’d needed persuading to leave, though it hadn’t been a difficult negotiation: His objections had faded the instant he realized there were ‘chicks’ aboard Sanctuary.

Kirk hadn’t yet managed to figure out if his speech pattern was due to the permanent influence of some Corti experiment or a lifetime of recreational narcotics, or if was just an affectation. Whatever the explanation, it was clear that behind that dopey dude attitude was a mind to rival the very greatest alumni of the Corti Directorate’s education system.

Strangely, he and Amir had become instant best friends. Kirk had no idea why.

“Share it.”

“Uh… news from Earth, dude. Looks like our guys just went FTL for like the first time ever.”

Kirk came to a dead halt in the hallway, oblivious to the beings that were edging around the knot of three humans to get past him.

“Uh… Kirk? Why are you smiling, man?”

“Oh, no reason. It’s just nice when your friends impress you.”

“Meeting is called to order in the chair and so on let’s get on with this. HOW did they get FTL so quickly?”

The scribe scrambled to finish the block of formalities that were the usual preface to meetings of the Dominion Security Council, and then gave up in bewilderment as the representatives of five different species all tried to speak at once.

While most of the remaining representatives just looked silent and glanced sideways at one another, one raised a huge hand and waited, radiating a patient pink.

“Councillor Vedreg?” the chairman addressed him. “You have an opinion.”

“I do.” The clamour died, and they turned to listen to him.

He took a moment to gather his shawl of office around his upper shoulders and strike a suitable statesbeinglike posture before launching into his explanation.

“We have reason to believe that a functioning wormhole beacon may have been smuggled to Earth during the early years of the Observatory program. Despite having been moved outside of the barrier, the Observatory still exists and has been monitoring spacetime distortions around Earth and its near orbit. Among the many traces we found in the subcycles preceding the launch and test flight of this human craft, were some that corresponded to the generation of experimental wormholes.”

“Reverse-engineering a working Apparent Linear Velocity drive from the temporal stasis technology contained in Hunter assault pods would have yielded FTL technology ahead of schedule anyway, gentlebeings, but when coupled with access to a working jump beacon…”

The Rauwryhr delegate interrupted him at that. “Jump beacons are useless by themselves.” she pointed out.

“For travel, maybe. For the purposes of learning the fundamentals of spatial distortion science, you could not ask for a better specimen technology.” Vedreg explained calmly.

The Gaioan delegate - a venerable male with long streaks of white around his eyes and muzzle - spoke up. “Need I remind the council that while the reforms to Dominion law concerning the status of intelligent non-FTL capable species is still being negotiated, the law has always been clear that once a planetary civilization has successfully and safely caused one living member to travel faster than light, they are official sentients and must be afforded the full rights and protection of a provisional member?” He said. “I must repeat that it is the official stance of the Clans of Gao that the quarantine field is a crime against the human race and that it should be removed as soon as possible.”

There was the general equivalent of nodding and “hear, hear.”

Vedreg’s flanks flushed a complicated medley of reds and purples. “In a purely personal capacity, Father Vyan, I agree, and I would like it on record that I voted against the proposal when it was first tabled in the Confederate Assembly.” he said. “I was outvoted, and it remains beyond my power to countermand that decision.”

Kirk’s replacement as the representative for the Vz’ktk Domain spoke up. “But it is not beyond your species’ power to ignore the Founding Charter.” she retorted. “The Confederacy is constitutionally obligated to remove that quarantine field.”

Vedreg clamped down on emotional luminscence, allowing only a forthright grey shaded with firm dark orange to show. “You are correct, of course. However…” He trailed off, searching for the correct way to phrase his next explanation.

The Corti representative finally chimed in, deploying a careful “…however?” into the conversation at the precise moment it would do the most harm to his confidence.

“However the barrier cannot be removed.” Vedreg explained.

“It must be.” asserted the Corti representative, calmly.

“I do not mean that my government is officially unwilling to remove it - though that is in fact the case - but that we do not in fact have the ability to do so.”

This was met with an incredulous silence that he rushed to fill.

“Humanity have attracted the ire of the Hunters. FTL-capable sentients though they may now be, they lack the orbital defensive infrastructure to protect themselves from the “Swarm of Swarms” should it descend upon an unprotected Earth. The best guess of our own Xenopsychologists is that the Hunters are not afraid of humanity, but are instead jealous of them. The humans have, after all, attracted considerable attention and fear in recent cycles, and the best guesses we have into Hunter psychology is that they view it as imperative that they be feared.

“The existence of a species which we, their prey, apparently fear even more than the Hunters themselves, is a direct affront to them. So, dropping that barrier would result in the almost inevitable genocide of a species that, for all their physical and mental tenacity, could not hope to survive a sustained orbital barrage.”

Again, the Corti spoke up. “A morally sound reason” he said, making the words “morally sound” carry the same weight of emotional opinion as he might have said 'financially questionable’. “So let us hear about your inability to remove the barrier. Your own experts designed it, did they not?”

“Indeed… to defend our own systems from external military threats. Converting one into a containment barrier was done hastily by the simple expedient of programming the emitter nexus to wrap itself up inside its own field.”

“Surely it can be remotely deactivated?”

“You must understand, Councillor, this was a defensive tool. The risk that it might be hacked and disabled by an appropriately skilled communications expert would have been a military liability. The device does not communicate with other systems via anything other than a physical connection.”

The Corti nodded understanding. “Which is now impossible to establish thanks to the way it is contained within its own field.” He sniffed his disdain. “Rather an unfortunate oversight by your engineers.”

This sentiment was echoed around the table.

“The Confederacy will make all appropriate reparations to the human race of course.” Vedreg said, hurriedly.

“A safe assertion, considering that they appear to be indefinitely contained.” the Gaoian said. “The Mother-Supreme of our clan of females will be notified of this, however. If you cannot make appropriate reparations to the human race, you can at least offer all necessary steps to compensate those humans who were stolen-” here, the furred councillor shot a glare at the Corti representative, which the latter being totally failed to acknowledge “-from their homeworld and have taken up residence in the galaxy at large, and to those species and organisations that have taken it upon themselves to provide them with sanctuary and a place to live.”

“Meaning Gao, I assume.” the Domain’s representative noted, with all of a Rrrrtktktkp’ch’s dry wit.

“Among others.” the councillor agreed, defiantly. She was about to offer a sharp retort when Vedreg held up one enormous hand, flanks shaded to indicate resignation.

“The Gaoian representative speaks the truth, the Confederacy is thus obligated to compensate them.” He agreed, having spent several boring days reviewing the law and precedents that applied in this scenario, none of which had contained any help for the Confederacy. “What are the terms requested by the Clans of Gao?” he asked.

“Food supplies, nutritional supplements and medical supplies necessary to support all humans who choose to accept sanctuary on our homeworld, plus appropriate military hardware and assistance to defend our planet from Hunter retaliation.” the councillor replied, having clearly memorised the terms in advance. “An immediate cessation of the information blackout surrounding Earth and the establishment of diplomatic channels so that all stranded humans may directly contact their loved ones. Remunerative compensation to our people equivalent to ten thousand Dominion development credits per human refugee who settles on Gao for longer than two cycles, and a five-cycle waiver on our obligation to commit units to the Celzi conflict.”

“Those last two terms are unacceptable.” the Rauwryhr delegate objected, siding with the Guvnuragnaguvendrugun.

“Excessive, certainly.” Vedreg agreed. “While the Guvnurag have no grounds to appeal the first, second and third terms, my people have the right to negotiate over the penultimate term, and that last one is a matter for the security council.”

The chairman spoke. “then it is the ruling of this council that the Guvnuragnaguvendrugun Confederacy is to pay to the Clans of Gao and to any other people or organisation who harbour human refugees the following: food, nutritional supplements and medical supplies to provide for that human’s needs, military assistance and/or hardware sufficient to realistically defend them from Hunter attacks. Furthermore, the Guvnuragnaguvendrugun Confederacy is required to permit ships to approach the Sol blockade and communicate with Earth.” It said.

“The motions have also been tabled first that the Confederacy is to pay ten thousand Dominion development credits per human refugee to any species or organisation which protects them, with the motion’s opposition requesting negotiation of that amount. As many of each opinion vote now.”

There were a few busy moments while each representative made their decision.

“The second motion is that the Gaioan Clans should be granted a five-cycle waiver on military involvement in the Celzi conflict, with the opposition denying that motion outright. As many of each opinion vote now.

Again, they voted.

“As to the first motion, being the four thousand three hundred and third vote of this council, There were two votes in favour, eight votes against, and three abstentions. The opposition has it, and the requested sum of credits will be renegotiated.” the chairman sounded the little chime that ceremonially marked that a decision was complete. “As to the second motion, being the four thousand three hundred and fourth vote of this council, there was one vote in favour, twelve votes against, no abstentions. The opposition have it and the motion is defeated.”

The second chime was the signal for council scribes, aides and messenger drones to zip about the place in a frenzy of activity. The chairman raised its ceremonial rod and spoke slightly louder about the noise. “this council session will now recess until the next standard diurnal period.”

Two years and seven months after the Vancouver attack

“Civilian vessel, this is Confederacy destroyer Vugarunguvrunek. Identify yourself and state your intentions."

"Vugarunguvrunek, this is yacht Sanctuary requesting permission to approach the broadcast point."

“Permission granted, Sanctuary. You are cleared for one burst transmission of no larger than three terabytes.”

“Acknowledged, Vugarunguvrunek."

Thanks to the convenient relay offered by a Corti communications monitoring station that had been installed twenty years previously, it was a trivial matter for the Sanctuary to squirt a total of twenty-five videos towards Earth. Twenty-four of them were from the human refugees, many of them tearful as they finally took the chance to relieve their loved ones’ fears.

The twenty-fifth was from Kirk.

"Kevin. I hope this finds you still alive and complaining: I know for a fact that you’re well wrapped-up in whatever’s going on down there. You see, I knew about the jump beacon.

The one you stole was trash, by the way: so I snuck a working replacement into your bag. Glad to see it worked as planned. Tell whoever you gave it to that if they tune it with the algorithm that’s on screen right now, we can start sending some of these people home.

Now, on to the really important stuff. If I know humans, you’re probably already well on your way to dropping this barrier somehow, but take it from your old friend: for the time being, that would be a very, very bad idea.

You see, a lot has happened up here since Vancouver…"

Chapter 9
6.5: “Jargon” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Two years and nine months after the Vancouver Attack

“A screensaver? Not seen one of those in years, Ted…”

“Uh, that’s… actually a simulation…”

The office shared by Major Ted Bartlett and Captain Claude Nadeau was best described as an ‘organized mess.’ Although both men had been drilled into the habit of neatness throughout their careers, the demands of their jobs meant that every spare surface and shelf in the room was laden with books, papers and tablets. It looked like the statelier kind of second-hand book shop: Densely crowded, but still as tidy and organized as it could possibly be.

The fields of study that had seen them through University were becoming hazy and uncertain now. The last two years had forced them both to branch out from their respective disciplines of Cosmology and Electrostatics, and become multidisciplinarians. It was no good focusing on one small aspect when the results came from a more holistic approach.

“What of?”

“It’s a folded-space topological problem.”

“We already cracked Super-L, Ted.”

“One type, sure. That little book detailed three kinds, eh?”

“I thought the general’s planning to recommend that we’re not interested in type 2 ERBs?”

“And for good reason, sure. But…”

“What?”

“I sent the tuning algorithm to a friend of mine, she lectures in mathematics over in Nottingham, England. Purely as an abstract puzzle in search of a solution, eh?”

“We already know the solution, though.”

“She found two, Claude.”

“No shit?”

“Nope. She gave me an alternative solution which is pseudo-stable for R T less than one if delta-E set one to set two is greater than the exponent of the tensor of set three p-one to p-two.”

Nadeau grabbed a paper and ball-point pen - there was yet to be a better substitute for the brainstorming physicist - and scribbled out a handful of equations. “…Right.” He considered it, then moved a few terms around, playing with the algebra. “I see it, but… What’s the Lebesgue?”

“Three.”

“That’s helpful. You’re sure, now?”

Bartlett sketched out a proof, to his colleague’s satisfaction.

“The only awkward bit is that exponent.” he said. “I worked on it some more and got this graph.”

it was mostly red, though running diagonally up and right was a curved funnel of slowly-widening blue. He tapped a point towards its flared end. “Fifty grams.” he said.

“Yeah, at seventy KC.” Nadeau said.

“Possible.”

“Hence the screensaver?”

“Hence the simulation, yes. All we need is an intersection of two ISD fields of those magnitudes which remains within acceptable bounds for, uh… six to the minus ten S."

“Think there is one?”

“Not enough to bet time on the IBM on it. It’s busy enough with the ESF equations for your “put the energy companies out of business” idea.”

“Which is why you’re running a fancy new screensaver-”

“-simulation-"

“-on your personal laptop rather than wasting base resources. Right.”

Bartlett sighed, and with a push of his legs, boosted his chair over to the office’s perpetual coffee source. “I tell you Claude, I’m jealous of your field sometimes. ESFs are going to change the world more than ISD is.

“You might be wrong there, Major.”

“Oh come on. You’ve already given us the tech for cheap spaceflight, viable asteroid mining, trivially easy near-Earth object tracking and deflection and buildings ten times as tall as we could already build. What have I got, besides one experimental spaceship that got named by our bartender?"

“Well,” Claude Nadeau said, slowly and with care “Your screensaver just turned green…”

Bartlett sighed. “For the last time, it’s a simula- wait, what?"

Chapter 10
Chapter 07: “Tensions” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

By Hambone 20 / Jun / 2015


Three years after the Vancouver Attack
I-5, Northbound. Everett, Washington

thup,thup… thup, thup… thup, thup…

“Urgh…”

click

"♪might as well face it… might as well face it you’re addicted to lo-ove… might as well face it… might as well face it… might as well face it…♫"
"The five o’ clock freeride, classic rock, 92.9… KISM“”
"♫See me ride out of the sunset, on your color TV screen. Out for all that I can get, If you know what I mean…♪♫"

click

100% chance of rain, but we got a great match-up tonight, Washington taking on the Dallas Cowboys…"

click

"…results are in from across the globe as China announced their representative for the first meeting of the Global Representative Assembly, and not a moment too soon with the Assembly’s first meeting taking place next week in Cape Town, South Africa to appoint the world’s ambassador in space. CRAZY, right? And just think, this time three years ago we thought the alien abduction people were all wack-jobs…."

“Most were.”

"…and then good old NASA, and - forgive me folks, but I still think of it as the AMERICAN National Aeronoautics and Space Administration. They may have kept the acronym, but don’t try and sell me this bull about how it’s the NATO Aeronautics and Space Agency nowadays, NASA landed men on the moon back in ’69 and I don’t care if it was a Canadian scientists who invented the warp drive or whatever they’re calling it, but it was an AMERICAN who flew Pandora, am I right?"

“Asshole.”

"So Pandora flies to, I dunno, Mercury and back…"

“Jupiter, dickwad.”

"…nd all of a sudden it’s like “hello humanity, welcome to the stars, join us all in sunshine and hugs and yeah we’re really sorry about LOCKING YOU UP, please do us the honor of sending forth what you hoo-mens call an “am bass a door” that we might blah blah.” Why are we even bothering? you know what those alien douchenozzles deserve? Two fingers, one on each hand! Tell ’em to come back once they’ve found Jesus!"

“Oh for-” click “-fuck’s sake”

thup,thup… thup, thup… thup, thup…

“…fuck it.”

click

"…And we put a DEMOCRAT in our seat on this Assembly? I thought we were supposed to be appointing somebody to represent AMERICA’s interests, am I right?"

“Ugh.”

click

"♫♪…in New England town, feel the heat comin’ down. I’ve got to keep on keepin’ on, you know the big wheel keeps on spinnin’ around and I’m goin’ with some hesitation. You know that I can surely see, that I don’t want to get caught up in any of that…♪♫"

"sigh"

thup,thup… thup, thup… thup, thup…

1,500 Km above the Arabian Peninsula

"Ping NEO-tracking." “…Green.”

"Test EACS."

“Check.”

"SUBLIME power to idle."

“…Check.”

"Power to ISDE."

“Check.”

"Test ERB-2."

“…Check.”

"Test ESFALS."

“…Check.”

"Test ESHOD."

“Check.”

“Pandora, Mission Control. Checklist complete."

“Mission Control, Pandora. Checklist complete."

"Copy that, Rylee. Scotch Creek reports the package is ready. In your own time."

“Hey, what is this, Houston? My fifth?”

"Fifth, yes."

She laughed. “And nobody else has even done this once, yet.”

"Elitist. Just try not to slam into the moon at seven kilolights, we’ve only got one."

She decided that she liked her new controller. He wasn’t afraid to drop the professional bullshit and send a joke up the line to comfort her nerves.

“I’ll try, Mission Control. Pandora, going FTL."

On her own insistence, the silly big red button had been replaced with a thrust lever. It just felt more right, more Star Wars. Granted it only output a binary “go” command to the navigation computer rather than providing analogue control over the engine power, but it still just felt right to reach forward, grip a solid chunk of plastic and metal, and push it firmly forward as far as it would go.

She patted an exposed patch of Pandora’s hull fondly. “Let’s ride, baby.”

This was by far the shortest hop they had yet done, she didn’t even have time to see anything happen: the moon just became bigger. In less time than an eyeblink, it ceased to be a distinct object in the sky, assessable in its entirety with the naked eye. Now it was an expansive feature. She realised she was now the closest person to Luna since 1972, although still deceptively far away at some sixty-four thousand kilometers, close to but not directly on top of the earth-moon L1 point.

“Mission Control, Pandora, checkpoint reached."

“Nicely done. ESDAR has you on target to a… 0.3% deviation.”

“My compliments to navigation!” She could already hear the applause in the background.

"Yeah, they’re pretty happy. ERB-2 is still reading green, I have go code from the package."

“Copy, Control. Opening the door.”

This piece of equipment was mission-specific, and although Pandora had been designed with future-proofing in mind, she hadn’t been designed to interface with alien technology, which was why the mission package was activated via a smartphone that had been duct-taped to the flight console.

She reached out and tapped the app icon with the stylus that had been secured to the back of her flight glove with the most useful substance in space, some more duct tape.

A space station blinked into existence three kilometers in front of her. All things considered, its arrival was depressingly anticlimactic. She’d been hoping for special effects, maybe some kind of wibbly-wobbly space fireworks. At most she detected a faint shimmering of the stars around it, as if space had bulged gently.

The station itself, however, was impressive. Pandora was by no means a small vehicle, but the station was orders of magnitude larger, reminding her of the time she had gone surfing in California only for a Right Whale to breach the surface just ten feet to her right, but scaled up to eleven. It was like being ambushed by an airport terminal.

Fortunately, they had thought to compare notes as to communication protocols, wavelengths and codecs before the mission, so the transmission from it was clear and bright.

The voice that spoke did so in curiously accentless English. “Embassy Station 172, jump complete. Our thanks.”

“Welcome to Sol, 172.”

“It is a pleasure to be here, Pandora. Will you be docking?"

“Not in my mission profile, 172, I’m sorry. I’d love to come aboard.”

“We understand, Pandora. Launching shuttles, they will follow you on autopilot to a safe landing facility."

“I look forward to coming back.”

“We look forward to it too. In fact, we request that you be the pilot who escorts your world’s selected Ambassador on board. It seems only fair.”

Rylee grinned inside her helmet. “Wild horses couldn’t hold me back.” she promised.

“Hey, Kevin.”

Jenkins turned at a familiar voice speaking his name, and laughed aloud when he saw who it was.

“Jesus shit. Terri Boone? When the hell was the last time I saw you?"

She’d lost weight and muscle tone, her hair had gone from a shoulder-length bob to halfway down her back, and she looked like death warmed up, but she still treated him to a smile.

“About two and a half years ago.” She sat down. “Nice bar you’ve got here. You can sell booze on a military base?”

“Why not? They aren’t on duty all the time, and they’ve got families. Good coffee, too, and you look like you need some.”

“Oh, hell yes. You do lattes?”

He busied himself with the espresso machine. “The best lattes in Scotch Creek, I promise.” He said, tamping down the coffee grounds and locking the portafilter into the group.

“I’ve seen Scotch Creek, that’s not much of a boast.” she said, watching as he selected a panini and slid it into the grill for good measure.

“You should have seen it when the convoy first got here. It’s five times the size it was then.”

“And eighty percent of that’s the base?”

“Yep.”

He finished the drink with a flourish of steamed milk, and slid it in front of her. “On me.” he said. She picked it up like it was made with water from the Fountain of Youth and sipped it. “Okay, that’s damn good coffee.” she allowed, sagging as it chased the tension of a long journey out of her.

“Told you.” he said, pressing down on the panini grill. “Now, not that I’m not glad to see you again, but this ain’t a social call, am I right?”

“It’s business.” she acknowledged. “I’m… kind of betraying my employer’s trust.”

“Your mysterious employer?” Jenkins asked. he plated the panini and set it down, doing that too-handsome guy smile up one side of his face as she grabbed it and took a huge bite. “Finally exceeded your professional ethic, huh?”

“Mmf… o’m’g’d what’ff in thifth?”

“Bacon, brie and cranberry.” Jenkins told her.

“Mm… I’ll never say a bad word about the French ever again.” Terri promised.

“So, what’re you breaking trust over?”

“Well, he’s going to be getting this information too, but I just figured that you might find a use for a list of every abductee who’s currently outside the bubble.”

“You’re shitting me!”

She pulled a USB stick from her bag. “Nope. It’s just a best guess, the end result of thirty months of globetrotting, research and questioning people who most of the time didn’t even speak English, but I’m pretty sure it’s mostly right.”

Jenkins picked up the device and pocket it. “I’ll… make sure the ambassador finds out about this.”

“You’ve got a line to him?”

“No, but I play poker with somebody who does.”

She inhaled the rest of her panini. "God, I needed that."

“Where the fuck did you drive from, Mexico?”

“Pretty much.”

“Got a place to stay?”

“If you know any comfortable couches that are going spare…?”

“How about a futon?”

She sighed happily. “Oh yeah. You know what a weary traveller needs.”

Ten days later
Cape Canaveral

“Captain Jackson?”

She scooted out from under Pandora’s port wing where she and a flight technician had been fine-tuning the ESFALS array.

“Doctor Anees Hussein, I presume.” she said, rising from her trolley to extend a hand to Earth’s selected ambassador. He cut a strange figure, a small, bald, bearded Iraqi man in a nice suit, leaning slightly on a beautiful polished wooden walking stick while around him men and women in jumpsuits bustled back and forth, prepping Pandora and the three alien shuttlecraft for flight, though the latter apparently required practically no maintenance. The fourth had been shipped north to Scotch Creek, to be enthusiastically devoured by the reverse-engineering teams.

“For my sins.” he agreed, shaking her hand and smiling warmly. Rylee returned the smile genuinely - she had always had a soft spot for charming old men with a twinkle in their eye, and for all that he was twice her age, Doctor Hussein had that kind of charisma by the tonne. “She’s beautiful.” he added, looking towards Pandora and instantly winning Rylee’s good graces.

“She is.” she sighed, looking fondly at her sled. “Less so when she’s grounded though. She’s born to fly.” “I look forward to seeing that. I understand you’ll be flying her up alongside our shuttle.”

Her esteem for him grew even further. He wasn’t complaining, or even questioning, that she should be flying Pandora rather than the shuttle. The Ambassador was clearly an expert at first impressions.

“The embassy did say they hoped I’d be the one to escort you and, frankly sir, flying anything else would feel like cheating on her." She said.

“I guessed as much.” Hussein replied amicably, folding his hands gently on his cane. “I wish there was a second seat, actually. Something tells me nobody will ever pilot her but you.”

“They’d have to shoot me before I let somebody else fly my girl.” Rylee agreed, matter-of-factly.

“I had best leave you to keeping her in perfect order then.”

“Please. It’s a long checklist.”

“Leaving so soon?”

Terri sighed. “you woke up.” she accused.

“Hey, you’re the one sneaking away without saying goodbye. It’s not even light out yet.”

“I’ve been here ten days, Kevin.” she said. She stooped and collected a discarded bra, and shrugged into it, trying not to let the way his dark eyes roamed all over her, getting a good last look, effect her. Those ten days had been… enthusiastic. Both of them had made up for a couple of long, dry years. “I need to get back.”

“I know.” He said, and stood up. She took her own opportunity to get a good look at him as he yawn-stretched and then put on some pants. “I’m not dumb enough to do something soppy like try and stop you, neither. I just figured you may as well start the trip with a full stomach and a proper farewell.”

“I guess…”

“Come on. Best pancakes in Scotch Creek, I promise.”

“I’ve seen Scotch Creek, that’s not much of a boast…”

“…Test ESFALS." “…Check…”

"Test ESHOD."

“Aaand… Check!”

“Pandora, mission control. Checklist complete."

"Mission Control, *Pandora. Checklist complete."

Every time, Pandora performed just a little better. Or maybe it was just that Rylee herself was becoming more in tune with her sled’s foibles, but she could swear that the disconcerting wobble that had defined their previous ESFALS vertical take-offs was gone now.

“You alright over there, Limo?" she asked of the pilot of the diplomatic shuttle, on her wing, as both craft extended their flight surface fields and coasted higher and higher on only a gentle thrust.

"Jealous of you. This thing handles like my sister’s car."

“That bad?”

"The controls are idiot-proof."

Rylee made an “aaaah” noise of understanding. “Idiot-proof” meant one thing to an experienced pilot: that you couldn’t do half of the things you would like to have available as options.

“Hey, at least you can scratch your nose.” She said, leaning forward to brush that offending organ against the patch of velcro that had been glued to the inside of her helmet.

The helmet was full of little customisations like that, from the velcro pad, to a suction nozzle in case of a repeat of Luca Parmitano’s experience with water flowing freely inside the helmet or - God forbid - Rylee vomiting. The whole suit was a testament to the power of cobbled-together solutions to minor irritations, and was designed for long-term habitation, right down to some rather cunning plumbing around the pelvis. She could have worn it for a week and experienced nothing worse than the desperate need for a bath.

She noticed with amusement that she had forgotten to remove the smartphone stylus from her glove. Oh well, it would probably prove useful anyway.

"And you can thumb yours at us. This things gets three kilos, tops."

“You’re kidding?”

"Nope. I’m flying the next best thing to a moped… comfy in here though. No expense spared in upholstering the ambassadorial transport."

She chuckled. Next to Pandora’s sleek-yet-functional lines that showed off her Lockheed heritage, the shuttle was an uninspiring box that relied entirely on its fields for aerodynamic profile. A team of designers had done their best, stripping off the original beige paint and polishing the metal to a mirror shine, and reportedly filling the interior with tasteful wood and woven fabrics. The original leather upholstery idea had been swiftly abandoned on the advice that the aliens were almost universally herbivores and would be thoroughly disgusted by the idea of sitting on a once-living thing’s skin, or even a facsimile of it.

Pandora alerted her to something with a pleasant beep. “Coming up on Delta- point 1.” she said. It was deceptive how quickly space could sneak up on them when the ride was so gentle.

"I see it. Slaving FTL to you…. *Mission Control, Limo. Escort has the button."

“I have it. Mission Control, Pandora. Escort has the button."

“Pandora, Mission Control. You are clear for FTL."

She didn’t bother making any comment this time, just rubbed the exposed bit of Pandora’s chassis for luck, and pushed the thrust lever forward.

Again, the moon just blinked larger in the sky, and there was Embassy-172, an impressive tower of white, almost blinding in the sunlight even through her dark glasses and Pandora’s own reactive window tint.

“172, Pandora. Ambassadorial transport on final approach."

"Copy, Pandora, the Ambassador is cleared for bay one. Will you be coming aboard?"

“I will, 172. Pandora requesting permission to land."

"Permission granted, you are cleared for bay three…. ah. Pandora, we can’t handshake with your landing system, it’s giving an incompatible protocol error."

“Dammit.” Rylee scrabbled to troubleshoot the problem, then decided it wasn’t worth her time. “Copy that, 172. Request permission for a manual landing.”

There was a pause filled with the hiss of solar radiation and nothing more.

"… Pandora did you just say MANUAL landing?"

“Affirmative 172, manual landing.”

"That’s… oh? Right. Yes, sir. Pandora you are clear for manual landing, bay three."

“Copy 172, bay three.”

Rylee shook her head in bemusement as she rounded the station’s bulk and lined up on her assigned bay. In fact, of all the manoeuvres she had rehearsed in the simulator before Pandora was even built, manually landing on an enclosed flight deck aboard a steadily-rotating space station had been one of the first and easiest, and that had been when they still thought she’d have thrusters that required fuel. Nowadays, with an unlimited thrust budget, it was even simpler. Match rotation, nose forward, probe forward with ESFALS and haul herself forward and gently on to the deck. Frankly, she doubted that the computer could have done it any smoother.

Compared to landing on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, landing on Embassy-172 was trivial.

By the time post-flight checks, power-down and securing her ship had finished, the bay had become host to a welcoming party of weirdness. She tried not to stare at them as she swung her boots over and dropped down to the deck, easily and buoyant in the light gravity.

<+Oh my God that one looks just like Rocket Raccoon, don’t stare, don’t stare…+>

A short creature with the uncomfortably familiar face beloved by the UFO community the world over approached, trailed by an archway of some kind that moved on a hovering pad, which settled in front of Rylee.

She tried not to let the fact that half the assembled beings apparently had no issue with nudity bother her. Strangely, the one wearing the most clothing of all of them was the furry little raccoon-alien, who was wearing a garment that seemed to resemble a cross between her own flight suit and a pair of dungarees.

“Captain, if you would be so kind as to step through this decontamination archway before removing your flight suit, you would save us all a great deal of trouble and potential agonizing death.” Requested the Grey. Up close, she could see that the movements of its mouth bore no relation at all to what she actually heard, which was a pleasant male tenor with a faint hint of… condescension? Intellectual superiority? The effect was convincing and humanizing at least.

“Sure!” she said happily, and stepped through it, followed by “Wow! Oh my God that feels weird!"

The little grey alien stepped forward sharply. “Are you in pain?” he asked, tone tinged with concern.

“No, no, just… wow, my teeth have never felt so clean!”

“Ah, yes. Streptococcus Salivarius in particular proved to be exceptionally resilient, as did Staphylococcus Aureus, but we beat them in the end. You may remove your helmet now, Captain, we are for the time being quite safe from you."

Rylee did so, pleased to be out of it, and took the opportunity to scratch an itch above her ear.

<+I knew that stylus would be useful…+>

“Excellent. If you intend on staying longer than eight hours, we will need to give you a longer-lasting injection or even, if you are willing, a permanent implant. Until then, I shall leave you in the capable hands of the rest of the crew.”

Rylee watched him go. “Wow. I’ve had some terse doctors in my time…” she said. There was a chittering noise from the space raccoon. Something in… his? …body language suggested amusement, so she decided that the chittering had probably been the equivalent of laughter.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the translator gave him a wry baritone “By his species’ standards, that was a warm welcome.”

Rylee smiled. “I guess I got so caught up in flying Pandora there that I forgot to read the cliff notes on… everyone."

She looked around, taking in the blue and white giraffe-people, the bat- person, an enormous pile of fur in the back that seemed to be content to observe from a distance for the time being, and more. Most of the rest of her welcome party sketched respectful gestures of welcome and left her to converse with the raccoon.

“I can’t blame you, it’s beautiful.”

"She is, isn’t she?"

“She? As you wish. And I’ve got to say that was some beautiful flying. I know Traffic Routing get fidgety over manual landings in their bays, but I’ve never seen a landing that smooth from anything, muscle or machine.”

“You’re a pilot yourself?”

“I am! Officer Goruu, of Clan Firefang, My species are called Gaioans.”

“Captain Rylee Jackson, NASA. Human, obviously.”

“A pleasure. Be gentle, right? You could probably crush my hand if you squeeze too hard.” he extended a hand - and it was, to her relief, definitely a hand, an honest tool-user’s fingers, rather than an animal’s paw - so she disengaged the pressure seal on her gauntlets, removed them and shook the offered extremity as delicately as she could, intrigued at how warm and silky the short fur of his hands was.

<+I’m shaking hands with an intelligent alien raccoon. Holy. Shit.+>

“Want to see Pandora up close?" She offered. “I still have a few post-flight checks to run through.”

“It’d be my pleasure.” Goruu said. He started to enthuse more and more as they got closer to the sled’s hull. “She’s so aerodynamic! By the time my kind developed warp technology, we’d long since abandoned these kinds of curves in favour of shaped fields.”

“She was mostly made by a company called Lockheed.” Rylee said. “She’s got those shaped fields too, but they stuck to a policy of “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” After all, if the fields fail I’d rather not be flying something with the aerodynamic profile of a boot."

“That… makes a lot of sense actually. I might have to take that saying home.” Goruu said. He stooped to look under Pandora’s belly. “Huh. Your kind go in for redundancy in a big way, don’t you? Pressurised cabin and pressurised flight suit, the whole hull and field thing, two forcefield landing systems…"

“She could limp home on just one engine, too.” Rylee said. “It’s called Murphy’s Law.”

“Your legislation mandates redundant systems?”

Rylee laughed. “No, no. Murphy’s Law isn’t legislation. It’s an… observation. Like a law of physics. ’Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, eventually’."

“I’m taking that one home, too.” Goruu said. “Oh! A field-assisted scramjet?”

“Yep! She’s the fastest thing we ever built by a long, LONG way, both in space and in atmo. Mach 20 across the ground, easy.”

“What’s her maximum?”

“We don’t actually know.” Rylee beamed, correctly interpreting the Gaoian’s open-muzzled expression for the dazed awe that it was. She opened a hatch, checked something inside, closed and sealed it, checked the seal, and then ticked something off on the little booklet attached to her wrist. “Theoretically, with the fields doing the heavy lifting and taking mechanical stresses out of the equation, we think she could hit somewhere upwards of Mach 30. Of course, that’s small fry next to the FTL."

“Well, obviously.” Goruu agreed. “What’s she do?”

“That depends how much I give her.” Rylee told him. “I guess if I really pushed her… Seventy kilolights for six hours? Of course, right now that’d be a one way trip, they’ve not finished the WITCHES yet.”

“Seventy… how? She’s not big enough for a power plant that size. Especially given that - no offense - I doubt your first ever FTL engine is very efficient. And what’s WITCHES?”

“None taken, she’ll get faster as we swap out the FTL core. She was built to be future-proof. Anyway, the power plant’s for running the on-board electronics and life-support. Power to the FTL comes from a supercapacitor bank. At the moment that’s charged on the ground, but WITCHES - that’s WIde aTtainment CHarging Energy System - can take photons from any local stars or whatever and convert them into stored energy. The bigger the field, the faster we charge. Once that’s finished and installed, in theory, Pandora could go from dry to fully charged in less than a minute just by sunbathing."

She grinned. “And of course, crazy-prepared beauty that she is, if I did get stranded, the ship power plant is good for fifty lights. Not fast, but better than dying alone in deep space.”

Goruu stood back and used his claws to comb some stray fur back behind one ear. “I take it back, she’s not merely beautiful, she’s the most gorgeous thing I ever laid eyes on.”

“Aww, the ladies must be all over a charmer like you.”

“I’ve sired my fair share of cubs.” the Gaoian agreed, sounding pleased with himself, so Rylee assumed that her compliment had been a success.

He pulled a device that looked much like a smartphone from the pocket of his own flight suit and glanced at it, then said something which the station didn’t translate. “I should go, my Clan-Father wants to have a word with me.”

“It’s been a pleasure, Goruu.” Rylee said, still scarcely believing that she was already considering an alien raccoon to be a likeable acquaintance and potential friend. She paid close attention to the markings of his fur around the eyes and muzzle and memorized them - It would be very embarrassing to have got on so well with him only to confuse him for some other Gaoian.

They shook hands again, and Goruu ducked his head in what she took for a respectful gesture before jogging away.

As Rylee watched him go, she carefully tucked away the scrap of paper he had palmed her when they shook hands, and busied herself with completing her post- flight checks.

“Did you succeed?”

“Yes, Father.” In Goruu’s case, the title of respect bore a slightly more intimate meaning: the face looking back at him from the screen of his communicator bore markings and coloration that were almost a mirror of his own, and there could be little doubt that Clan-Father Amren was his Sire, but that relationship was a distant second place to the bond of Clan. Being the Clan-Father’s cub brought no special privileges, nor should it: the entire clan structure existed specifically to avoid that kind of nepotism. But they had a good relationship nonetheless.

“Excellent. The ambassador will be arriving shortly. We’ll let this… mockery of diplomacy play out: the important part has been accomplished. You’ve done well. Did you find it hard to get into the pilot’s good graces?”

“I didn’t even have to act. Some of the innovations and philosophy that went into that little ship truly are stunning, and she’s hopelessly in love with it. I confess, so am I. If we adopted some of the ideas she told me about into our own craft…”

“Now is neither the time nor the place, Brother.” the Clan-Father reminded him.

Goruu ducked his head and flattened his ears, chagrined. “Yes, Father.”

“Good lad. Take the First Frost back to Gao: I’ve convinced a Mother to join us."

“A Mother?”

“Yimyi. And yes,” he said, holding up a paw and displaying tolerant good humour as Goruu’s expression lit up “she will have Sister Niral with her, Brother. You’ll have plenty of opportunity to make a good impression before they head back.”

This was by way of being a reward for special success, and Goruu could barely contain his gratitude, but the Firefangs prized emotional control and maturity, so he settled for a compsed “Thank you, Father. Good luck with the ambassadors.”

“More fool the others for making us need luck." Father Amren practically spat the word.

“They can’t possibly believe that concealing the existence of the Great Hunt and the jettison order will do anything but harm in the long run, can they?” Goruu asked.

“I truly have no idea. Gao voted in favour of full disclosure, we were overruled, and will face sanctions if I break that ruling during this session.” Amren ruffled the fur at his shoulders, irritably. “Idiots.”

He recovered himself, giving his jaw a determined set. “Goruu, making a good impression with the humans is vital. It’s only a matter of time before they discover how poorly their people have been treated by the Dominion, especially in response to the Great hunt, and Gao must get on their good side: Your rapport with their pilot and the influence of the Clan of Females might well tip the balance. I suppose we’re just fortunate that we have the time to move behind the scenes before your note can be raised at the next meeting."

“Okay.” she said. “Those were some DAMN good pancakes.” “Told you.” “I should… go.” “Yeah. You should.”

“Yeah…”

She stood up and looked around the room. “Um, d’you know where my panties wound up?”

“Somehow, I had expected somebody rather different. A warrior, like his escort, not… well.” the Vzk’tk ambassador signalled the image of Doctor Hussein limping along the corridor, leaning heavily on his stick even while engaging his aides and staff with avuncular small-talk.

“Not a frail elder?” asked the Rauwrhyr ambassador.

“You have it exactly. A reminder of their physical abilities would make sense, and instead they’re sending us this specimen?"

Clan-Father Amren chimed in at that point, and a few of the ambassadors flinched. The Gaoian had been inside a privacy field for several minutes: they had all but forgotten he existed. “In which case they have shrewdly out-played you.” he commented. “A fair reminder to respect their intelligence as well as their muscles, not so?"

The ambassador for the Corti Directorate signalled agreement. “Humans are not a savage species, gentlebeings. They are from a savage world. There is a critical difference, and failing to remember it can only be dangerous."

“Forgive me, Ambassador” commented the ambassador for the Kwmbwrw “but they eat flesh. That in itself is a mark of savagery.”

The diplomats shot glances at one another. The Kwmbwrw had suffered terribly from their close proximity to Hunter space, and had suffered raids by those enigmatic, evil things since before they had invented movable type. It had badly, but understandably, prejudiced them.

“So do my own species, ambassador.” Amren reminded him, voice calm and affable. “Are we savages to you?”

The Kwmbwrw wisely chose to maintain a diplomatic silence, but fidgeted sulkily in his seat, and the gathered dignitaries refrained from further conversation until the door opened and the station’s security director introduced the human.

“Doctor Anees Hussein, ambassadors.”

The ambassadors rose from their seats in a mark of respect as the human limped in and looked around with a faint smile, hands trembling slightly as he rested them on his cane. “Well. Thank you for the warm reception.” he said.

“We have much to discuss.” the Corti ambassador said. As founding members of, and indisputably the most influential members of, the Dominion, it was a tradition for the Directorate’s ambassador to speak first on such occasions. “But welcome, Doctor. This day has been sooner in coming than in the history of any other species yet known to us, and is all the more wonderful for it. Earth has already made big waves among the interstellar community, and we are keen to see what more your people are capable of.”

There was a general murmuring of agreement, and the security director respectfully escorted the human to his own desk, diplomatically arranged as part of the circle, rather than in the interrogative middle of the room.

“To business, then.” the doctor said. “If I may say a few words?”

“Of course.”

“Excellent.”

He stood up again, resting himself gently against the table and selecting one of his notes with that same trembling hand. He fastidiously opened a pair of reading glasses, set them on his nose, lifted the note up to peer at it, and then nodded, satisfied.

"ahem"

"Ultimatum from hunters: demand all humans be turned over else quote Swarm of Swarms endquote will raid known human locations. All ships, stations carrying human passengers advised: jettison immediately."

In the ringing silence, he set the paper down and gently tweaked it until its edges and corners were flush with its fellows. He took off his reading glasses, meticulously folded them, and set them carefully on top of his notes, before looking up and skewering them all with a hard glare that bore no relationship whatsoever to the kindly sparkle his eyes had held only moments before.

“I think, ambassadors…” he said “…that we are owed an explanation.”

Chapter 11
Chapter 08: “Alternatives” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Three years and ten days after the Vancouver Attack
Portland, Oregon

click

Once the lights were on, it wasn’t hard to find the TV remote: it was placed carefully on the bed, exactly where a traveller checking in for the night would see it. Terri dropped her bags, picked it up and channel surfed, pausing when she recognised a famous mustached physicist.

"…thing I don’t get is that this… shield, barrier, whatever, is supposed to stop things from moving through it, right?"

"That’s right, yes."

"It’s like a solid wall in space."

"Exactly! In fact it effectively IS a solid wall in space, just made out of nothing but the same electrostatic repulsion that makes… this table solid, or my hand solid."

Satisfied, she checked that the door was shut and the curtains closed, before she shrugged her jacket off, and hung it on the hooks by the door.

"…station get here then? Did it just warp through the wall? That’s not much of a wall."

"So there are… it looks like there are two ways to get from A to B faster than light. The first one’s the warp drive mounted on Pandora, right? But the SECOND one was actually theorized by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1935…"

Satisfaction shifted to interest and she turned the volume up as she took advantage of the hotel’s expense by starting to fill the huge bathtub with the hottest water the faucet could provide.

"Wormholes, right? I think that was on Star Trek."

She retrieved a few cosmetic essentials from her travelling case and soon a bath bomb was crackling and hissing in the water, and filling her nostrils with the scents of grapefruit and bergamot.

"…upshot is that when you travel through one of these things, the intervening space doesn’t matter. you just go from A to Z without passing through B, C, D and so on along the way!"

"So the barrier doesn’t matter to this thing."

"Exactly. Now, the reason we can’t use it to get out is because these bridges collapse pretty much instantly unless they’ve got a field generator at both ends."

The bath could be left to its own devices for the time being. Terri stood and stripped off her shirt. The garment had been sweaty and uncomfortable for the last couple of hours, and she sighed in honest relief as she was able to throw it into an undignified heap at the foot of the bed.

"…without somebody on the outside helping us get out."

"Okay, now… there’s been a lot of talk about how our gravity is supposedly much higher than the norm out there…"

"Yes."

"So are we likely to be that much stronger than everything out there?"

"Okay, so, from what we’ve been told, Earth is both larger and denser than the average “temperate” world. Now, if you’re both larger AND denser, then that means you have more gravity, and in our case it’s about thirty percent higher than what we’re told is the average."

Terri struggled out of her jeans as Bill Maher angled his head and made a skeptical tooth-sucking sound.

"Thirty percent doesn’t sound like that much to me."

"Small changes can make a huge difference. If the Earth was just half as big again as it actually is, we would never have been able to launch rockets at all, let alone ones strong enough to carry space stations and people into orbit. Earth is probably pretty close to being about as big as you can get and still send crews of people into space."

"What does that have to do with muscles?"

"Well, it might have tipped us over the point where evolution would select for one specific KIND of muscle, or something like that. That’s not really… you know, I’m interested in it all, but the stuff I’m most interested in is astrophysics, and what these new technologies can teach us about things like dark energy."

As the Real Time panel fell to discussing the politics of the situation, egged on occasionally by their host’s snide observations, Terri discarded her underwear and stepped into the bath, hissing and gritting her teeth as she gingerly lowered herself into the slightly-too-hot water.

She largely ignored the rest of the debate and the panel’s observations as she luxuriated in the feeling of too many hours of freeway travel being cooked away, emerging only once she was thoroughly soaked and relaxed.

"…finally New Rule, Rylee Jackson is not a sex symbol."

She arched her eyebrow as an assortment of dismayed noises emerged from the crowd. Maher basked in the controversy for a second, before launching into the meat of his closing statement. She sat on her towel on the end of the bed drying her hair, and listened.

“Business as usual on Earth…” she muttered.

Cimbrean

"Unidentified vessel, you are entering private space. Halt immediately and identify yourself or you will be destroyed."

Kirk halted immediately. The threat was, unbeknownst to the being that had made it, a hollow one: he had come in on a vector which provided him the option of boosting to FTL straight away in the event of aggression, and there wasn’t a weapon in the galaxy that could have caught them had he done so.

Still, it didn’t pay to antagonize the people you were there to see. Especially not when the people in question were a privateer band led by the self-styled “Space Babe Pirate Queen” of the Far Reaches.

Kirk had been aware of Jennifer Delaney for months. In fact, he knew quite a lot about her. The dead-end IT job in Belfast, the unfortunate fate of the crew of the starship Blue Encounter, and her…unique…deal with the Dominion who were turning a blind eye to space piracy in her particular case so long as she directed her attacks exclusively at the Celzi Alliance.

Privateering, it was called. A human concept, which was rapidly turning Delaney into a major player. More major than she herself suspected, probably.

It had certainly net her a private planet, in the form of Cimbrean. A total backwater in the heart of the Far Reaches, Cimbrean’s only valuable trait was its isolation. Even for the incredibly fast Sanctuary the nearest civilization was Gaoian territory, five days away. And the Gaoians were themselves still a peripheral civilization.

Given that isolation meant being vulnerable to pirate attacks or Hunter raids, Cimbrean’s remoteness should not have been a selling point at all. Still, it had somehow apparently attracted an enterprising corporate director with more money than sense who had decided that the place would make for an appropriately opulent private retreat.

Now, that private palace out in the middle of nowhere was the base of operations for the most successful pirate band in known galactic history. Kirk didn’t know the details of that story, and didn’t want to. Ideally, he would have preferred to leave Delaney alone--There was no damsel in distress here, the woman was clearly dangerous and if she wanted to return to Earth then she had the resources to do so herself.

But successfully returning twenty-one refugee abductees to Earth had come with a mission. Allied Extrasolar Command and the Global Representative Assembly had both identified a possible opportunity in Delaney, and it fell to Kirk as humankind’s only active agent outside the quarantine field to deliver the message.

They wanted to turn Cimbrean into the human race’s first colony.

The twenty-second refugee and the only one still aboard was Darragh Houston, a fellow Belfast lad who’d obviously been quite taken with the idea of the redheaded space pirate queen and had volunteered to stay on Sanctuary so that he could join Delaney. Apparently just seeing Earth again, from orbit, was good enough for him. Even Allison had gone back to catch up with some old friends and take a vacation. The ship felt badly empty without them.

More so, in light of that approach challenge. It was just as belligerent as he’d feared, and the presence of one skinny naive young man wasn’t really helping Kirk feel reassured.

Hopefully Darragh’s plan was more solid than his motives. “Complying, Cimbrean colony, Yacht Sanctuary, coming to full stop."

“Sanctuary, state your business.”

“I have a message for Jennifer Delaney,” Kirk told them.

“There is nobody here by that name, Sanctuary,” the Cimbrean operator lied.

“Understood, Cimbrean. My mistake. But just on the off-chance that somebody of that name should show up in the near future, would you please tell her that Captain Kirk is asking: “What’s the craic?”

There was a long pause.

“…Sanctuary, you will hold position.”

“Complying, Cimbrean.”

There was a much, much longer pauser.

“…Sanctuary, you are cleared to land. Do not deviate from your assigned landing trajectory.”

“Thank you, Cimbrean. Proceeding to land.”

Beside him, Darragh laughed. “Told you our space pirate lass couldn’t resist that one!” he gloated.

Kirk chirruped a half-hearted, nervous laugh with him. “Just… be sure that she gets that letter.” he said. “A lot is depending on you, Darragh.”

“Aye, I will… hey, I’ll miss you, Kirk. You’ve been good to us.”

“You will be okay?” A couple of interceptors had come up to guide them in, and by their lines they were cut-down, repurposed Hunter vessels. They looked decidedly menacing.

“I think we all will, so long as this place stays below the Great Hunt’s radar.”

“Well, my next mission is to try and pull some strings in that regard.” Kirk said, as the Sanctuary nosed up and deployed its landing gear.

“Beats the feck out of me why you’re going against your own Dominion like this, man.”

The landing finished with a gentle bump.

“… because the Dominion only mattered to me when I didn’t understand it.” Kirk told him. “Good luck, Darragh. I will miss you too.”

“You too, mate. Be safe.”

He left, and Kirk was left to reflect on just how empty the Sanctuary would feel without any human occupants.

Hopefully, that would soon change.

Cape Town

Doctor Hussein could imagine the thousands of cellphones turned upwards to catch a glimpse of the ambassadorial shuttle coming in to land. The Provincial Capital had sold a prime plot of land on the mountainside to the Global Representative and had thereby become Africa’s answer to the UN in New York.

While an architect’s design had been selected and the groundwork for the Assembly building had already been laid, it would probably be nearly a year before it was finished, so for now the Global Ambassador’s office was rented in the Portside Tower. The building sadly was not equipped to handle the needs of an intrasystem shuttle, necessitating a hangar at the airport and a limousine commute under escort, flanked by burly black SUVs.

Fortunately, the limousine had been outfitted to handle a conference call with the ten highest-ranking Assembly members, so there was no interruption to business.

“The Gaoians are a definite ally.” he said. “They tried to approach me unofficially via Captain Jackson. As for the rest, while I think we have most of them sufficiently impressed and intimidated for the time being, the Corti ambassador has a very cool head. He will be the most difficult target for our aggressive approach, and his Directorate is easily the most politically powerful. He will probably be able to temper the reactions of the others.”

The British member was a floppy-haired man who had earned his position by cultivating a popular image as something of a buffoon, an approach which had declawed his aristocratic accent into a harmless eccentricity. In private sessions and meetings, however, he allowed his whip-smart side to come through, and right now was nodding thoughtfully.

“We still have a few tricks up our sleeves.” he commented. “It’d be a shame to use one of them so early, but if we need to…”

The Chinese member - once General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China - indicated his agreement. “These privateers have given us a wonderful bargaining chip, if we care to use it.”

The former US Secretary of State frowned, skeptically. “It’s early days yet, shouldn’t we hold on to that one for later?”

“That particular chip may be time-limited.” Hussein mused. “And if we are being aggressive, then we need to keep up the pressure.”

“It’s potentially dangerous to our agent…” objected the British member.

“We shall just have to trust him.” Hussein asserted. “In any case, no great gains are made without risk.”

“And if he succeeds, it will be the move most likely to disrupt the Corti ambassador’s cool….”

“…Or else render his cool irrelevant. As you say, Madame Chancellor. Shall we vote?”

There was a general show of hands.

“Then it’s settled. The next time our agent gets in contact, we’ll have him make the approach.”

Three years and twelve days after the Vancouver Attack
San Diego, California

Terri’s phone played the sound of a door opening just as she took the off-ramp down onto 17th Street, which was not encouraging. The noise came from a home security app she had purchased which told her if her apartment door was opened when her phone wasn’t at home.

She stopped on Logan Avenue long enough to grab the well-maintained Colt 1911 and her concealed-carry license from the lockbox in the trunk where she had hidden them under the spare wheel for the drive through Canada, then, heart pounding, finished the short drive into Grant Hill.

Rather than take the front door, she parked a little way from apartment and, with care, ghosted up the fire escape as quietly as she could. A quick glance through the bedroom window showed no sign of an intruder, so - praying that after a few weeks of her absence it would still slide up quietly - she opened the window. To her relief, it whispered open and she was able to step silently through onto her memory-foam mattress and from there fold her feet down onto the floor without making any noise.

The rest of the apartment was open-plan. She hesitated for a moment thinking about whether to enter slowly and quietly, or burst in and strike the fear of a loaded gun into any trespassers. The thought belatedly occurred to her that a camera and an app to watch it from her phone would have really helped right now.

"Fuck it" she whispered to herself, and went with the “burst in” approach.

She shouldered the door, crashed into the room, and, sensing his presence out of the corner of her eye, pointed her gun directly at “Mr. Johnson”, who was sitting on her couch, a gun of his own aimed at the front door. He had his right foot crossed onto his leg and his spare arm across the back of the couch, looking relaxed and arrogant.

That changed instantly when he looked up at her and his eyes dropped to her handgun.

“Ah. Well. This is awkward.” he said.

Suicidally, stupidly, he tried to shoot her anyway.

They were his last words.

Three years and two months after the Vancouver Attack
Earth-Luna L3 Point

“Mission Control, Pandora, checkpoint reached, over."

"Five by five, Pandora. ESDAR says… 0.2% deviation, over."

“Roger, Control. PARANAV agrees zero point two, over.”

"ERB-2 is green, I have go code from the package: open the door, over."

“Wilco.”

For the second time, Rylee reflected that jump drives really should look a little more impressive. She watched closely this time and saw a faint shimmer as the leading edge of the spatial distortion wavered the great dust fields of the Milky Way like heat haze, but that was about it. Otherwise, a space station materialized in front of her. This one wasn’t the elegant white needle of Embassy-172, but was instead a little more ornate and decorative. Less Minimalism, more Art Deco.

Communications were established as soon as they had injected correctly into the L2 point. "Jump complete. Our thanks, Pandora." they sent.

“You’re welcome, Embassy. On behalf of the nations of Earth, welcome to Sol.”

"Thank you. The Celzi Alliance is honoured to be here."

Chapter 12
Chapter 09: “Gains and Losses” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Three years and one month AV
500 West Hotel, San Diego, California, United States of America

"…in a prepared statement, the President of the Russian Federation declared that his country would have no part in what he called “the Western monopoly” on space travel, A sentiment echoed by the People’s Republic of China in their own statement just three hours later."

"Meanwhile the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, announced today that the first atmospheric test-flight of their own space plane, codenamed “Inazuma” has been a success, and that the new craft will be attempting to make orbit in a flight scheduled for next week."

"With rumours abounding that several South American nations are in talks to form their own unified space agency, not to mention the fledgling private endeavours of Virgin, Red Bull, Mitsubishi, Google and BAE Systems, It seems that the second Space Race has begun in earnest."

"Joining me on the show tonight is British science fiction author…

♪♫WOOOP WOOOP that’s the sound of tha police! WOOOP WOOOP that’s the sound of tha beast! WOOOP WO-♫♪

+click+

“Terri Boone. Good afternoon, detective.”

She’d taken an immediate liking to the homicide detective who’d attended the scene. Gabriel Ares, a by-the-book type who was packing quite a lot of wiry strength into his short frame. The man was shorter than Terri, and Terri was only average height at best. but he’d ran a practiced eye over Terri’s apartment and immediately declined to arrest her so long as she kept the SDPD informed as to her whereabouts.

“Good afternoon, Miss Boone. I thought you’d want to know that the department is satisfied you acted in self-defense and seeing as you’ve obeyed the terms we set, we won’t be prosecuting.”

“Good, because I was getting antsy sitting around in a hotel when an organisation I’ve worked for is trying to kill me.” Terri pulled the towel off her hair and started to shrug into her jacket one-handed. She had no intention of staying in the hotel a moment longer than necessary.

“Yeah… look, Miss Boone, we simply have no evidence that this guy ever worked for anybody other than himself.”

“You checked his office?”

“The landlord of the address you gave swears that the guy who attacked you was the sole user of that office except for business guests. No other registered employees, and we can find no evidence of any business associates. If he’s a member of some conspiracy or organisation, then there’s just no evidence pointing to it. I’m sorry, but without any evidence I can’t turn department resources to investigating your claims. We’ve done everything we reasonably can.”

“That doesn’t strike you as odd that a guy who describes himself as a “business network consultant” didn’t have any easy-to-follow business associates?”

“It strikes me as a lot odd, yeah. But it’s not enough to launch an investigation over. Lo siento.”

“…Fine. You’ve got enough to worry about.” Terri knew that the way she phrased that could be construed as bitter, but she honestly wasn’t. Fortunately, Detective Ares seemed to either be good enough at judging tone of voice via phone call to get that, or jaded enough not to care.

“You’re a P. I., right?” he asked.

“Right…”

“Go ahead and investigate this on your own terms. If you turn up anything solid, you’ve got my number, and… Well. Stay safe and let me know how you get on.”

"Gracias, detective."

“De nada. Stay safe, Miss Boone. Hasta luego”

Terri grabbed her bags and took the stairs down to the reception desk. The outcome had been pretty much exactly what she expected, so all she was left with now was the question she had been mulling over for five days.

<+Why on Earth would a list of alien abductees be worth killing over?+>

Three years and three months AV
Bulford ECTC, Salisbury Plain, England.

“Fall in!”

They did so, instantly. Every man in the unit was a volunteer, taken from all around the English-speaking world without regard for their previous unit. Every single one was special forces.

“Today marks your first session training for combat in prevalent extraterrestrial conditions. We’re going to start slow with an obstacle course, and work our way up to live-fire over the next week. By the end of this training program, you will have gained the skills and knowledge useful in moving effectively in low-gravity environments, and will have learned to identify and react appropriately to the catalogue of known potential nonhuman contacts. Completing this training will certify you for off-world missions, some of which will be of indefinite duration. If anybody wishes to back out, say so now and it will not be held against you.”

None did. They had all already gone through far worse just to get where they were, and taken far more dangerous assignments during their careers. Their instructor waited a moment or two before nodding his approval, and then gave a thumbs-up to the control room mounted high along one of the tall inside walls of the ECTC hangar.

He flexed his knees and absorbed the sudden change in gravity with practiced familiarity, resisting a smirk as the spec-ops veterans all staggered, swayed or exclaimed aloud at the difference.

“Line up! When I blow my whistle you will run that obstacle course, best time!”

Several minutes, bumped heads, scraped elbows and bruised egos later, the last of the veterans flew off the end of the last rope and trotted to a halt awkwardly, instincts undone by the lower gravity. While all had, to their credit, managed exceptional times, not a single one had completed the course with their dignity completely intact.

That was okay.

“This first run was planned to destroy any illusions you may have had about knowing what you’re doing.” the instructor said. “You have spent your life training for Earth’s gravity, which is thirty percent higher than the off- world norm. That thirty percent makes a surprising difference, as you have just learned. Every instinct you have about how to move, how long you have to react and what you can achieve is wrong. Forget them and start over. Any questions?”

There were some, which were promptly answered to everyone’s satisfaction.

“Right! Back to the start: we’re going again and if any man here fails to beat the time he just set, the whole unit is doing a hundred pushups in double gravity! Move!”

To his grudging satisfaction, no pushups were necessary. But they still had a long way to go.

Planet Nightmare

Summer was coming. Over the years, Julian Etsicitty had learned to view summer on this hellscape the same way winter might be viewed back home - the good times were over for another year. Soon - too soon - he’d be out of the season of plenty, where hardy nuts and roots and hibernating animals were easily dug out from beneath the snow and frozen ground, and into the season of explosive growth.

Back to mornings and dusks spent lurking under two layers of mosquito netting. Back to checking his boots for venomous biting things that had found a nice dark place to make their nest and spawn a new generation of tiny monsters. Back to spending his days desperately slashing back at the encroaching greenery around his camp, doing nothing but keeping back a wall of vegetation that grew so quickly you could see it.

Hopefully, at long last, there would be no bombfruit bushes this time around. He thought he had killed them all: It was hard to tell, when the fruit literally exploded and sent its seeds flying everywhere. He had been very lucky indeed to survive the woody shrapnel of his first encounter with bombfruit, and the scar down his right forearm was a constant reminder not to take anything on Nightmare for granted.

Sure, calories and vitamins weren’t hard to come by in the summer months, so there was that saving grace. It was a wonderful time to prepare jerky by the fire for the rest of the year, to dry fruits to ward off scurvy until the next growing season. There was a lot of work to do in the summer, all of it physically demanding, and all of it in sweltering heat.

He was determined to enjoy the last few quiet weeks of snow and silence while he could, so had made himself a warm fruit juice when the sound rolled over the forest and hills: the unmistakable noise of a sonic boom.

he paused, tense, and then rushed to his hut and grabbed, from its special stash above the bed, the “rescue potential” kit. A flare gun, a shaving mirror, the solar-charged two-way radio.

He emerged into the clear ground around his camp not a moment too soon. A teardrop of steel and matte black was just emerging from behind the peak he’d named “Mount Fuck You” for the way it stood much taller than the three mountains that flanked it.

He raised the gun, and shot the flare high into the sky over the forests.

He almost collapsed with relief when the ship immediately changed course toward him.

++

"Hello, Julian. Welcome aboard."

“Uh… hello.” He replied, nonplussed at the absence of a welcoming party on the door.

"I’m sorry for not greeting you in person, but I suspect that standing in your presence right now would prove fatal for me. You’re setting off a lot of biohazard alarms up here…"

“I am?”

“I’m afraid so. Decontamination won’t take long, fortunately, and the good news is you’ll feel thoroughly clean once we’re done. Would you be so good as to dispose of your clothes in the incinerator to your left?*”

Julian practically rushed to comply. The thought of feeling clean for the first time in who-knew how long was incentive enough.

He paused at the idea of throwing away the predator-tooth necklace he’d made, though. or the carved wooden beads that were on it. He had worked long and hard on those, they were unique.

"If there are any items you wish to keep, there is an autoclave on the front wall." the voice said.

Having heard that, Julian needed nothing more, and was soon standing naked in the middle of the chamber, a little surprised at how unselfconscious he was about it. “What now?”

A device - little more than a black dome mounted in some kind of white frame on the wall - glowed blue at him for a second.

"Checking… okay, you’re good to proceed into the next room." The door slid into the floor, revealing a slightly less sterile-seeming room on the far side. The threshold had a strange golden haze to it, but Julian didn’t let that bother him.

“Wow!” he exclaimed, coming to a halt as soon as he’d passed it.

"Feel strange?"

“It did.” His teeth were abnormally clean, the crawling, itching sensation in his hair and beard to which he had acclimatized was gone, the hair and beard themselves were clean and soft and his skin felt scrubbed. His body odour suddenly became conspicuous in its absence.

"You had rather a lot of parasites. They’re gone now including, you’ll be happy to know, the ones that were threatening your liver function. There are clean clothes in the nanofactory’s dispensary hopper to your right."

Clean clothes!

They were a strange, neutral kind of cut - little more than a T-shirt, tracksuit pants and a pair of remarkably generic-looking boots - but they fit him perfectly, and they felt so very, VERY good.

“So… who are you?” He asked to the walls as he put them on.

“Most humans call me Kirk.” the voice said. “And yes, I’ve watched Star Trek, so I understand the joke.”

“I never did.” Julian confessed, noting the most humans bit. “We didn’t have a TV.”

"Yes, I’ve read your file. The Directorate wanted a wilderness survival expert who was low-profile enough to be missed: a remarkably rare thing to find in any civilization."

“Lucky me.”

"You should be proud. You’ve set a record for surviving on Nightmare that nobody else could have."

“Can I go home now?”

"…I wish I could. I truly to. But there have been… complications."

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

"I knew you wouldn’t. Nobody ever does. Why don’t you come up to the common room, and I’ll brief you?"

“And after that?”

"After that, I’ll be asking for your help."

Three years and four months AV
Cape Canaveral, Florida

“Here she comes…”

Pandora’s engines were a low rushing sound like waves breaking against distant cliffs as she passed low over the facility. They went completely silent as she circled briefly and then set down on the concrete, lifting herself only on the shaped fields of her ESFALS module until her wheels kissed the hardtop. She was promptly surrounded by technicians who began the laborious checklist to ensure that she would be worthy to fly again.

Rylee Jackson took the ladder and patted the aircraft fondly before she strolled over towards the waiting entourage, stripping off her gauntlets.

“So you’re the new… oh, Danny! You made it!”

Danny Cho smiled at Rylee. The pair of them had served in the same wing over the middle east, and firm though sporadic friends, both married more to their jobs than to actual people.

“sure did.” he said. “I’ll be flying Ariadne."

Rylee shook hands with him then shared introductions with the other four pilots: Carys Davies, formerly of the RAF, flying Niobe, Steve Hogan formerly of the Royal Australian Air Force, flying Medea, and James Carter and Adam Kosinski, both ex-USAF, flying Electra and Danae respectively. Collectively, Odyssey WIng. Another wing of five Lockheed TS-101s - the vehicle for which Pandora herself had been the prototype - was being delivered to Europe to form the foundation of Edda Wing - Baldur, Dagur, Freyja, Magni and Skadi, but they wouldn’t be ready for another few weeks yet, and there was talk of establishing a wing in the southern hemisphere called Tāwhaki Wing.

Between them, the Russian, Chinese and Japanese efforts, plus private campaigns, Rylee suspected that her sky was going to start filling up before long. It was a bittersweet thought.

“Did you hear Red Bull got their prototype up?” Danny asked, as they walked in a loose group to the hangar.

“I didn’t!”

“Too busy swapping notes with an alien raccoon?” He teased.

“Hey, he’s a friend, lay off. But Red Bull? Seriously? I would have thought Virgin Galactic or SpaceX…”

“Red Bull had their eye on space ever since they sponsored Felix Baumgartner.” Davies said. Rylee decided that she liked her accent, which was soft and melodic, but still had a bit of workmanlike grit. “And things have got cheaper since then thanks to ESAFS. I think after that crash Virgin had a few years ago they’ve been playing things very carefully.”

They stepped through the slightly ajar hangar door and Rylee couldn’t suppress her smile at seeing five more _Pandora_s waiting inside.

Except not quite. On closer inspection, they were just a little more polished: Less prototype, more production model. Her girl was still unique.

“Did they go FTL?” She asked.

“Yep! just a little jaunt out to Ceres and back.” Danny told her.

“Think they’ll set anything up out there?” asked Kosinski.

Davies scoffed. “Somebody needs to, or we’re never going to get the property laws sorted out."

“I guess we should just be glad that the whole “no weapons in space” thing was repealed,” Rylee mused.

The thus-far silent Carter raised an eyebrow “How d’you figure?”

“Well, you realise that the barrier’s a casus belli, right? The GRA’s been pretty clear that they consider the demilitarization of space to be short- sighted in view of some of the threats that are out there."

“Makes sense, I guess…” Carter conceded. “Not sure I like it.”

“Get used to it, wagon.” she teased. “Because getting some weapons in place up there is going to be Odyssey Wing’s first mission.”

Three years and six months AV
Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility.

“And the jammer is… live.”

Nobody in the room needed to be told that. Every single one felt, rather than heard, a highly pitched keening that seemed to bypass actual sound and become an immediate feature of their audible world.

“That… puts my teeth on edge.” Martin Tremblay declared.

“Sorry, General.”

“It’s fine, Major, just get this demonstration underway.” Tremblay ordered. Bartlett nodded and swiftly complied.

“Simple enough, we open a wormhole and….” he looked across to his colleague on the other side of the laboratory as the vacuum chamber in front of him became a visibly distorted knot of isolated spacetime distortions, bending the light that passed through it in disconcerting ways. “Anything?”

“Not a whisper.” the scientist reported.

Bartlett shut the jammer off and everybody in the room untensed just a little.

“At less than ten meters, and that was a stable connection without any harmonic damping.” He announced. “We’ve cracked it: deploy one of these on any ship with a jump drive, and it’ll be able to use that drive immune to detection by out-of-system scanners. If we stick it on a warp-capable minisat, we’ll be able to completely block the detection of any FTL or wormhole activity inside the volume of effect, while the field itself will notify us of any that happens inside its ambit.”

He shut down the wormhole generator and the abused spacetime inside the test chamber sprang back into shape.

“Good, because without that, WERBS would have been a one-shot advantage.”

That comment came from Major-General Gregory Pierce, Tremblay’s superior and the man most directly responsible for deciding which of the Scotch Creek facility’s incredible discoveries were Canadian national secrets, which were shared among NATO members, and which went global.

“As you say, sir. But now that we’ve got this, a test run shouldn’t be difficult.” Bartlett agreed.

“Not in Sol.” Tremblay said. “Jammer or not, we should be careful.”

Pierce considered this. “Cimbrean?”

“We don’t even know if that colony is still alive, and even if it is we really don’t want WERBS linked to a human organization, especially not one that officially doesn’t exist, sir.” Bartlett said. “There are plenty of uninhabited systems out there, we just need a beacon to get to one of them.”

“This isn’t one I feel comfortable sharing outside of the Treaty nations, gentlemen, and the Agent works for the GRA.”

“Well, it’s either that or WERBS goes untested.” Bartlett said. “Heaven help us if we have to rely on an untested weapon for real, eh?”

“…I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, you’ll be pleased to know that the dragon’s teeth microsats have been successfully deployed. Edda Wing got the last canister up this morning.”

“That’s step one, then.” Tremblay said. “How did the Asians take it?”

“Russia condemned the move, obviously.” Pierce told them. “In private, though: Thankfully they weren’t stupid enough to publicly condemn us and leak what Dragon’s Teeth actually does. The Chinese are yet to officially comment, but the scuttlebutt there is that they understand the practicality of the Dragon’s Teeth system but would have preferred to play a more active role in its deployment.”

“Gracious of them.”

“Eh, leave the politics to the politicians.” Pierce said, dismissing the sarcasm. “You’re doing good work round he- damn.”

He paused as the office phone rang. Tremblay answered it, listened for a second, and then wordlessly handed it to his superior.

“Pierce.” This was followed shortly by “…what.”

Those two words set the general tone of a three minute conversation that ended with the general hanging up and looking thoroughly angry.

“The Russian Federation just declared for the Celzi Alliance.” he said.

Tremblay frowned “They can do that?”

“Apparently they’ve not only done that, but they’ve been giving practical support to the Alliance in the form of a Spetsnaz team.” PIerce said. “I should get back. We need to move fast and sound out the PRC before they make their own declaration.” he shook his head. “If I were the Ambassador, I’d be livid.”

Embassy-172

Doctor Anees Hussein was, in fact, actually quite pleased about the situation, though he affected an air of disappointment as he stepped into the ambassadorial debate chamber aboard E-172.

The usual formalities were completed soon. The aliens were as keen to get started as he was.

It was the Kwmbwrw ambassador who spoke first: “Ammbassador Hussein, This is grave news indeed for us. It would seem that your political blocs are not behaving obediently.”

“I did warn you." Hussein replied, calmly unfolding his reading glasses to examine a sheet of paper. “Let’s see… yes, my exact words were that “the GRA acts only as nominal representation of the nations of Earth who will undoubtedly plot their own courses by their own values if they do not see what benefit the GRA brings them”

He set the paper down. “By which, gentlebeings, and in case I was not adequately clear when I said that, I meant that ANY nation, treaty, alliance or other one of our political entities might decide the same. The GRA does not rule, it represents by consent, and could be dissolved overnight if the nations so chose.”

What he left unsaid, but knew would be snaking treacherously through the gathered Ambassadorial minds, was the implication: If Russia might do that, what’s stopping the rest of us?

That implication alone was enough for most of the Ambassadors, and he settled back to steer the slow collapse of their resolve. As ever, they assured and reassured him of just how much of the Dominion’s vast resources might be owed to Earth.

Much of which, in fairness, had already started to arrive. Solar collection forcefield technology was on the cusp of revolutionizing Earth’s energy industry in ways that all other solar power tech had only hinted at. The last piece of the quantum-computing puzzle had been a collective headslap for the experts in that field. The Corti Directorate had - reluctantly and with bad grace - been strong-armed into revealing the secret by which the human immune system could be tricked into tolerating the presence of foreign cybernetic implants without weakening.

This last concession had particularly irked the Directorate’s ambassador. He in particular was a nut had persisted in being more difficult to crack than the others, and became more so with every meeting.

Doctor Hussein was beginning to suspect that the Corti wasn’t even bothering to remain unemotional any more. In fact, he suspected, the Corti was gladly simmering in a building resentment of, and hatred for, the whole of the human race.

He watched as the little grey being examined a message that had apparently just arrived for him, and then met Hussein’s eye. Anees decided that the expression on the ambassador’s face was that of grim satisfaction, as if an obstacle or irritation had been dealt with.

They were beginning to enter some dangerous territory. It would not do to be too aggressive from here on out.

Date Point: 3 years and 6 months AV
San Diego, California, USA, Earth

brrrrrp. brrrrrp. brrr-

“-Detective Gabriel Ares.”

“Ares, it’s Terri Boone here. Remember me?”

“Sure do. Que pasa, how’s your investigation getting on?

“long and dull, I’m sure you know how they are…”

Terri shouldered the door open, wishing not for the first time that she could linger in the air-conditioned office building just a little longer. The air in the courtyard parking space out back felt hot enough to bake bread.

“…I’ve found something interesting. A law firm called Grey, Stanton and Friedman.”

“They’re not criminal or business lawyers or I’d know them.” Ares said.

“No, they’re civil rights lawyers, but their finances - don’t ask me what I had to do to track this down - are handled by the same firm that did accounting for Johnson. I just tried to look them up - and that wasn’t easy - and their address doesn’t rent to a company by that name, never has.”

“Suspicious, but…”

Terri sighed as she fumbled for her car keys in an awkward, one-handed and one-elbowed manoeuvre familiar to any woman who ever simultaneously tried to operate both her phone and her handbag.

“Detective, They tried to kill me over a list of alien abductees still extant from Earth. Stanton Friedman is a UFOlogist who was the original investigator of the Roswell incident and “Grey” is-”

Mr. Johnson stepped around the corner. It WAS him, there could be no doubt, right down to the neatly tailored suit and the suave facial hair. He was holding an assault rifle.

“Fuck!” she yelled, and dove for the cover of her car. Johnson opened fire, winging her with a round through the calf.

“Boone! Where are you!” Ares yelled, loud enough to hear despite the phone being on the ground next to her. She shouted the address at it as she dug through her handbag for her m1911, cowering against the engine block as Johnson emptied the magazine.

<+How? How the FUCK?! I KILLED him!+>

He stopped firing, and she hauled herself up and around to shoot back, only to be confronted with an awful truth.

The assault rifle had a grenade launcher on it.

This revelation arrived only a shaved instant before the grenade itself turned her car into a fireball and a blizzard of steel shards.

Terri was thrown halfway across the lot. She tried to get up, to keep fighting, amazed to be alive, and looked down for her gun.

There was so much less of her than there should be. There was so much more of her than there should be, pieces that God had never intended to see the light of day.

<+No…+>

It was a sad, desperate thought, and it was her last one. When Johnson walked up and calmly fired a round through her skull for certainty’s sake, Terri Boone’s corpse didn’t even twitch.

Chapter 13
Chapter 10: Legwork | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Three years and six months AV
San Diego, California

In his career with the San Diego PD, Gabriel Ares had seen more than his fair share of death, and the common thread with homicide was that none were dignified. It was an act of violation that still made his skin crawl, even after twenty years.

This one was particularly difficult, knowing that it could have possibly been prevented if only he hadn’t followed the rules.

But that was dangerous thinking and he knew it. Gabriel had seen enough cop movies to know that Hollywood preferred the maverick, the rule-breaker, the loose cannon. But in real police work, you worked by the book to the letter, or else guilty men went free on a technicality. There was no room for renegade action in his definition of a Good Cop, and Gabriel had grown up from a young second-generation Mexican-American surrounded to the north and south by the lure of gangs and drug warfare, and had decided very early on that he’d be a Good Cop instead.

On days like today, that was a decision he almost regretted. It meant he had to deal with shit like this.

With news helicopters circling overhead and a clamour of journalists beyond the tape and uniforms, Terri Boone’s body had been covered over out of concern for the deceased’s dignity. But there was no way to disguise the huge dark smear of sun-dried blood across the parking lot, or the fact that covering her remains had involved several pieces of cloth.

Forensics were picking over every inch of the lot, accounting for every bullet hole, every shell casing, every grenade fragment, every scrap of sundered Ford Mustang. The lot was a forest of little yellow markers, swept inch-by-bloody- inch by men and women in white disposable clothing, meticulously photographing and documenting it to a fare-thee-well.

The Forensics lead - Doctor Schieffer - approached him as he leaned against his SUV, taking it all in.

“Progress.” he reported.

“You’ve established a cause of death?” Gabriel joked, resorting to his trademark callous black humour that indicated when he was truly upset. Fortunately, Schieffer had known him for years, and let the inappropriate comment slide.

“We found the phone.” the doctor held up an evidence bag. The little warped and shattered black lump inside was barely recognisable as having once been a smartphone. “It fetched up under that Prius over there, clean on the other side of the lot. Probably why the shooter couldn’t find it.”

"Madre de Dios… Think anything survived?"

“MicroSD cards are tough.” Schieffer reassured him. “Forget the surface damage, once we crack this thing open, we should be able to get the data off it.”

“Hopefully it brings us something.” Gabriel said, then sighed. “I’ve been putting this off. Guess I’d better go watch the security camera footage.”

“Good luck, Ares.”

It was as bad as he’d feared, and he made a point of not watching the victim’s expression in her final moments. It wasn’t relevant to the investigation, and would just give him trouble sleeping. He focused on the shooter instead.

“Mr. Johnson” stepped into the camera’s field of view and he paused the playback and raised his phone to his mouth, thumbing the “record” button on the dictaphone app. “Shooter is a caucasian male, looks to be in his mid to late 40s, about… five ten, to six foot tall, brown hair and beard…” he zoomed in. “Camera doesn’t show any notable distinguishing features. Tough guy to pick out of a crowd. Armed with an M4 carbine fitted with an M203 grenade launcher and a reflex sight and… yeah, looks like a pistol in an armpit holster. Can’t tell make and model from this image though.”

He let it play some more, pausing it when Johnson drew the pistol in question to be certain of his kill. “Okay, pistol looks like a… SIG Sauer P220, or maybe 227. Hopefully ballistics will be able to work with that.”

He watched as the shooter cast around for the missing cellphone, then glanced up and stared at something out of shot - probably the arriving uniforms. Then he looked directly at the camera.

Gabriel was struck by just how… average his face was. Johnson really had nothing in the way of distinctive facial or physical traits. A shave and a change of clothes, and he would look completely different. He could be anybody, become anybody.

Then he vanished. Literally vanished, as Gabriel discovered when he rewound and played over the moment of disappearance frame by frame. The feed didn’t so much as flicker, there was no indication of anything at all affecting the camera. But in one frame, Johnson was present, and in the subsequent, he was gone.

“How the fuck…?" he asked, quietly.

“How the fuck?" Julian exclaimed. Kirk shrank back slightly at the volume. Six years of isolation had entirely robbed the human survivalist of an indoor voice.

“I’ve planned it all out.” he said. “You humans are fast, but the key to this plan is that you’re fast over long distances. I need somebody who could hike the Appalachian Trail, and you fit the bill and then some."

“I do?”

Kirk nodded his long-necked head. It was an impressive gesture. “You’ve survived for six years on the most dangerous planet in the known galaxy. Actually, scratch that: you thrived there. The biohazard screen did a full scan of you: you’re in peak physical condition. You could run that trail. That part’s critical."

“I’m approaching on foot, then.”

“You have to. Their sensors will pick up vehicles and dropships easily, and with their defensive coilguns… a vehicular assault isn’t possible. But the facility’s designers never reckoned on the idea that anybody could approach on foot. It’s a class eleven planet - a walk in the park next to Earth, but dangerous to the rest of us.”

“So I should just be able to jog up to the walls.” Julian sounded skeptical.

“Fence.” Kirk corrected him. He correctly interpreted Julian’s raised eyebrow and elaborated: “It’s an ultrasound fence, designed to drive off the local wildlife, but it’s not a physical obstacle at all.”

“And the actual security?"

“The usual. Maglocks, big steel shutters, lots of concrete, force fields, a garrison.” Kirk imitated a shrug, spreading his four arms wide. "Not loaded for human, by the way."

“I’m not the killing sort, Kirk.” Julian said.

“Good, neither am I. The point is that the garrison aren’t a threat to you. Avoiding them would be best, however.”

“And the concrete and steel?”

“Leave that to me. You’ll be carrying a device that should help me help you.”

“So… I run in, avoid the garrison, you work whatever magic you’ve got planned, and then I just… come back the way I came?”

“Yes.”

“Carrying a backpack full of stolen military hardware.”

“Yes.”

Julian blinked at him, slowly, then gave up. “Fine. What could go wrong?”

“Okay… that’s got it. Out you come.” the forensic computer technician wiggled his needle-nose pliers a bit and finally the MicroSD card slid out of the wreckage of what had once been a phone.

Everyone in the office gathered round as he clicked it into a reader and opened its contents on his laptop. “Okay, easy-access stuff first, we’ll find any passwords or whatever secon… wow. Hey detective, there’s a folder here called Scotch Creek."

“Open it.”

Inside were a handful of snapshots of beautiful Canadian rural terrain, and one of the technicians confirmed that they were of the area around Scotch Creek with a quick Google Street Maps search. Alongside them was a folder marked “Kevin”.

There was a general exclamation of surprise at that second folder’s contents. Gabriel rounded angrily on an officer who emitted a lecherous two-toned whistle. “This isn’t fucking porn! You’re going to fucking whistle at a dead woman’s selfies? ¡Joder! Mostrar respeto!"

The officer looked away, mumbling an apology.

“I don’t want to hear it. ¡Vete a la mierda! All of you who don’t need to be here, out."

The exodus was rapid, especially the shame-faced officer who had whistled.

Gabriel calmed himself and returned his attention to the Scotch Creek folder. Most of its content was of Terri herself, and a mixed-race guy about her age with a cross tattooed on his forearm. None of those images were modest ones. A memory of happier, sexier times, he guessed.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to track him down.” he said. “Is that name in her contacts?”

“Let’s see… yeah, here we go. Kevin Jenkins.”

“Well, even if he’s not a witness, he deserves to know. Keep digging, I’ll make the call.”

+How are you doing?+

the text appeared in the top-left corner of Julian’s vision, thanks to a pair of dark glasses that Kirk had assembled in the nanoforge, along with some camouflaged performance clothing of Julian’s own design. The alien material was several hundred years of materials science ahead of the best Terran sportswear, and he felt cool, dry and comfortable despite having jogged over rough terrain for several hours now.

The only real fly in the ointment was the breathing mask. The planet’s atmosphere was just a little bit poorer in oxygen than the galactic average, and exertion should have quickly left him gasping for breath, or maybe dying from an aneurysm. Instead, the device on his face acted as a ramscoop, using force fields to collect a larger volume of air and enrich each breath, bringing it up to a comfortable Earth temperature and humidity. If it had only been made of the same material as his running gear, he would have been fine. Unfortunately, it was made out of some silicon-based rubbery substance which, while light and strong, was also about as breathable as foil. The result was itchy and sweaty.

"making good time" he subvocalized. A patch stuck to his throat interpreted the muscular contractions and exhalation to decide what he had said - it was an all but perfectly silent way to communicate.

+I meant physically+

"Just fine. I could do this all day."

+No need. You’re approaching the three hundred meter mark+

"You’re joking"

+Hardly. Three…+

+…two…+

+…one…+

He brushed past a tree and there the rest of the forest wasn’t. Something had stripped out a perfect circle of foliage, surrounding a facility that was little more than a concrete bunker, a personnel building and a landing pad.

+You’re in range. Wait.+

Julian did so, breathing from the exercise but otherwise surprised at how much he still had in him. The Wall was a long way off, yet.

+The ultrasonic fence’s alarm is disabled… move now.+

Julian did so. He saw the patrol - three Guvnurug in their massive combat harnesses, shambling around away from him as they completed that arc of their patrol route. The sound of their own heavy footfalls made his own light steps inaudible as he dashed from shadow to shadow behind them.

+Twenty minutes before they return to this section of the perimeter.+

"This is their idea of a secure military facility?"

+It’s completely secure against all foreseeable threats. You however are an unforeseen factor, and as a result make this place look like a shopping mall.+

"Don’t amuse me."

A blue diamond - his waypoint - appeared on his heads-up display, and, checking around him for hazards with all the skill he had honed in half a decade on Nightmare, Julian slipped over to it. It was a small door in the side of the large concrete bunker building.

+the code is one, two… top left, the one immediately to the right of that, the one immediately down and right from there, same one. immediately down-right, immediately down-left.+

Julian punched in the numbers on the oversized, Guvnurug-scale pad, reflecting that he was lucky Kirk had remembered that he couldn’t read any alien written language. There was an uncomfortably loud beep and a mechanical clunk from the door lock, and he slipped inside, wedging the door with a stone just in case.

+The blue crates against the back wall, and two or three of the things from the white crates on that exo-lifter’s pallet.+

Having no idea what these things did, Julian just obeyed orders. It took him only a minute or two to stuff the ordered items into the bag he had carried all the way out here, stopping only when the weight promised to become more than he could comfortably handle on the way back.

He helped the door close silently, checked his surroundings, flitted down a corridor of darkness where one of the base’s floodlights cast the shadow of a tall structure of some kind, cast around for watching sentries again, saw none, and sprinted across the open ground back into the woods.

The heist had taken maybe five minutes. If Kirk was right, by the time anything was noticed missing, he would be back at the Sanctuary.

brrrrp, brrrrp, brr-click

“Jenkins’ bar.”

“Hi, am I speaking to Mr. Kevin Jenkins?”

“Uh, yeah, you are. What can I do for you?”

“Sir, my name is detective Gabriel Ares, of the San Diego PD.”

“San Diego? Did something happen to Terri?”

“I’m sorry to tell you like this sir, but Miss Boone was murdered this morning.”

This was met with silence.

“…sir?”

There was a series of heavy sounds over the phone: a door opening violently, the clatter of something brittle being dropped, and a heavy thumping sound.

“…I’m…. shit, that’s….”

“If you need a few minutes sir, I can call back…”

“No… No, I’m…” there was a heavy, wavering breath from the far side of the line. “…god, Terri.”

“Sir, if you have any information as to a possible motive or culprit, then I could really use that to bring her killer to justice. I know it’s not much consolation, but it’s something.”

“Yeah, uh… She left an envelope under my pillow the day she went home. Note on the outside said “Please don’t open this, K. It’s my Batman insurance.”

Ares’ heart leapt to his throat. He knew that Boone had been a competent woman, but this….

He tried to ignore the fact that it meant Terri knew her life would shortly be in danger. “Do you have the envelope now?”

“It’s upstairs. Let me…” there was a grunt of exertion, then the sound of a door opening again. The distant, tinny voice of a woman offered concern in the form of a “shit, boss, are you okay?”. Jenkins’ response was inaudible, but was followed shortly by another door sound, and feet on what sounded like hardwood steps, then the jingling of keys and another door sound.

“I left it… yeah, here it is.” There was the sound of ripping paper. “it’s a… an email address and a password. says “Google Drive” at the top.” Ares jotted them both down as they were read out, handing the note across to the forensic tech.

“Can you think of any reason why somebody would want Miss Boone dead?”

“Uh… Shit, you put me in an awkward situation here.”

“How so?” Ares asked him.

“Look man, I’m technically a contractor for the Canadian Armed Services, so I’m subject to the Official Secrets Act. I’d do anything to help you figure this shit out, but it’s probably best if I get some official permissions first, you know?”

“I understand. You’ve got my number?”

“Yeah, I can save it. Detective…. you’ll let me know when the funeral is, right? Terri and I were close.”

“I’ll put you in touch with her sister.” Ares promised. “You’ll get back to me once you have permission to discuss this further?”

“Sure. I… look, I’ll be honest here man, I’m not holding it together too well here, I just…”

“Take all the time that you need, my friend.”

“…Yeah…”

Jenkins hung up, and Ares breathed a sigh. It had been a fruitful call, but in some ways even harder than the in-person visit to Monica Williams, Terri’s sister. She had just cried and curled up on the sofa, inconsolable. He knew how to deal with that. Stoic guys like Jenkins tore him up even worse, part of him wanted to shake the tears out of them, shouting “it’s okay you idiot, you’re allowed to weep.”

It was advice that he would have heeded himself, if he could.

"Welcome back"

“So what did we steal?”

"I’ll let you know as soon as we’re clear…. there we go."

Jullian set the bag down on the coffee table in Sanctuary’s main lounge with a sigh of relief. Even in the lower gravity and on a cool day, running that far with a pack full of hardware had been exhausting, and he flopped down on the couch, even more grateful than before for the high-tech fibre clothing.

Kirk stepped down from the command blister as he was massaging his sore legs. “Incredible.” he said, and Julian got the impression that a human would have been shaking his head in admiring disbelief. “If I didn’t know about marathons, triathlons and other endurance sports, I’d have never suspected that anything could run so far so quickly. They’ll be scratching their heads over this heist for a long time.”

“So what exactly did I steal?” Julian asked him. Kirk opened the bag and set the stolen goods out on the table. Five were about the size and shape of a hard drive. the other two were larger, closer in size to a loaf of bread and football-shaped.

“These five.” he said, indicating with his smaller manipulator arms “are wormhole beacons. Military grade, which means that they suppress their own distortion signature and can’t be detected with long-range sensors.”

He picked up one of the larger objects. “The other two are system defense field generators, like the device that’s projecting the Sol Containment Field.”

“Pull the other one!” Julian exclaimed. “I’ve taken dumps bigger than those things!”

His tall employer with the coat of short white fur smiled enigmatically, and set the device down. “Why should they be large? It’s all about advanced field technology, and technological advancement usually goes hand-in-hand with miniaturization.”

“Something that small is imprisoning my entire species?”

“Far from it. Nowadays it’s protecting them. Once we get these beacons set up, human starships will be able to leave Sol whenever they want.”

“That’s phase two.”

“Phase three.” Kirk corrected him “Phase two is, we need to deliver one of these fields emitters to Cimbrean. We’re on our way there now.”

“Cimbrean?”

“There are humans there. Your government’s first beachhead in the larger galaxy, and hopefully, the first of your fair share of colonies.”

“And the other emitter?”

“That’s for my other project."

“I’m recording this in case things go as badly as I’m afraid they might… I guess if you’re watching it, they have."

Terri shifted. She had recorded the footage while sitting in the driver’s seat of her Mustang, the camera - presumably her phone - mounted on the dash in front of her and slightly to the right. It was night-time, and she was parked somewhere.

She ran her hands through her hair, accomplishing only further dishevelment, rather than any grooming.

"What I’m about to say sounds absolutely crazy. But, I guess if I’m crazy and wrong then this video’s never getting seen, and if it gets seen then that’s pretty good evidence that I’m onto something…" she laughed a little. "Which is small comfort."

"Um."

She stared out of the window for a bit. A passing car’s headlights cast moving shadows across her face as she paused.

"I’m pretty sure there are aliens on Earth." she said. "Like, they’ve been here since long before the embassies arrived. And I’m getting more and more convinced that they don’t have our best interests at heart. I’m an investigator, I go by the logical, the methodical and the evidence but… I don’t know call it a hunch, call it a bad feeling, but looking at what I’ve gathered so far, there’s a pattern in there, and it’s kind of a scary one."

She finger-combed her hair again as it fell across her eyes. She looked rumpled, worn and tense: Ares got the impression that a man in her condition would have had several days’ worth of stubble darkening his jaw.

"I got to thinking, what could a list of alien abductees be worth killing over? That’s all I did for them: Spend two years on their dime, flying first class, interviewing people, examining records, chasing leads. Legwork, you know? I’ve tracked down…. thousands of likely abductees. You learn to see the telltales after a while, the things that tell you “yes, this was THEM”, not just, like, an unhappy end in the river or in a shallow grave in the woods or something. that’s all in one of the documents, you can double-check my work I guess."

She looked up again as another car ghosted past, filling her own car with light and a soft whoosh of displaced air.

"Why could that be killing for? Why have a man in a suit waiting in my apartment with a gun? I’m pretty sure if I wasn’t safety-conscious, I’d have walked in there and been shot and nobody would be any the wiser. Robbery gone wrong maybe, I dunno, or maybe they… make it look like a rape or something. Something like that. Just another California evening."

"Was it because I gave a copy of the list to Kevin? But that doesn’t answer the question. A list of names isn’t worth shooting a girl dead in her own apartment over, it’s a termination of contract, you know? “Thank you for your valuable work Miss Boone but we will be commissioning the services of somebody more… trustworthy.” So that list is really, REALLY important. It must be."

For the first time, she looked directly at the camera. "So I went looking. I’ll… look, the details are all in this Google Drive, so I won’t bother repeating them for the camera. But I’m going to be back in San Diego tomorrow, and there’s a law firm: Grey, Stanton and Friedman. The name itself is a reference to Roswell, one of those stupid ballsy “I’ll never get caught” audacity things, I guess."

"Why am I looking into them? Ask Ravi Singh. He’s an abductee, He lives in Brick, New Jersey. Ravinder Kanvar Singh. For God’s sake get to him before my killer does, because if you don’t get to the bottom of this then a lot more people than me are going to die."

"When you find him, ask him about the Hierarchy."

Chapter 14
Chapter 11: “Direct Delivery” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Author’s note: This stage of the narrative is pretty heavily entangled in what was happening with Rantarian’s series, "Salvage“, and the character of Jen Delaney migrated from that series to this one and back again during the next few chapters.

If you have not already read “Salvage”, then now would be a good time to do so. The necessary chapters are part of the [essential reading order](https://w ww.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/ref/universes/jenkinsverse/essential_reading_order)

Three years and seven months AV
Alliance Embassy Station

Of all the warp-capable species in the known galaxy, perhaps the one that most resembled humans were the Qinis.

Not that anybody would ever confuse one for the other. Qinis were tall, taller even than Vzk’tk, and their slender bodies were an exercise in long, gently curving lines that made the human form look positively squat and gauche. They had large, expressive eyes set in their noseless faces above surprisingly feminine lips, and even though the eyes were slightly too wide-set and aimed apart to grant broad peripheral vision at the expense of binocular range- finding, the overall effect was, in an exotic way, actually rather appealing to the human sense of aesthetics.

Which was another way of saying that Rylee thought they were weirdly sexy. Especially when you threw in the large, pointed ears that swivelled this way and that seemingly with minds of their own.

Then there was their fashion sense. The Qinis bucked the interstellar trend by favouring clothing for more than simple utility. Practically every species at least wore a few pockets, packs, pouches and bags strapped onto their bodies, but by and large the interstellar community had zero nudity taboos: Clothing was an uncomfortable necessity when the wearer needed protection from some environmental or personal hazard, nothing more.

Only the Qinis and Gaoians seemed to differ from that general attitude, and even then, while the Gao had discovered long ago that clothing was practical and useful, they had largely constrained themselves to colourful overalls that left their shoulders bare.

The Qinis were different. They had fashion shows, trending designers and labels, the works. Admittedly, by human standards, Qinis clothing was far from modest - Rylee had been to a few fashion shows in her time, and the Qinis seemed to go for the kind of breast-baring, strangely cut artistic pieces that had made her internally roll her eyes while politely applauding. The objective of Qinis clothing seemed exclusively to be the artful enhancement and decoration of their physical features, rather than concealment, warmth or function.

At that objective, however, they succeeded admirably. She was finding it hard not to stare, or fantasize.

Not that anything could ever come of such speculative fantasies, of course. That gracile frame and its stately movements were the product of crystal- delicate long bones, upon which the muscles were strung more like gossamer than like the mechanical powerhouse of a moving creature. Any kind of an intimate tryst with a Qinis would have inevitably and swiftly become an agonising introduction to the joys of bone fractures, no matter how gentle the human tried to be. They were fragile even by the standards of other nonhuman species, having evolved on the lowest-gravity cradle world thus far known to the interstellar community.

It had come as a surprise to everyone that they had sided with the Celzi, in fact. Their kind simply were not warriors at all - too fragile, too slow, too gentle and esthetic. Siding with an open rebellion had seemed like a very strange move from them, but in fact they had become the industrial base of the entire Alliance, having long since mastered the engineering arts of automated assembly and resource extraction, keeping all the heavy lifting and physical exertion safely on the far side of a sturdy entourage of robots and drones. One Qinis engineer could mine asteroids with her left hand while directing the construction of a battlecruiser with her right, all while relaxing at a party wearing a stately and decorative robe of diaphanous fabrics hung with gems and loose-wound wire.

Next to which, Rylee felt downright dowdy in her USAF dress uniform, though she noticed that some of the Qinis males were eyeing the uniform’s cut speculatively. Either that or they were eyeing her - maybe humans were just as strangely beautiful to Qinis? It was hard to tell.

At least she didn’t need any such guesswork when it came to the Russian ambassador to the Alliance, who may as well have opened the conversation with “Hello Captain Jackson, would you like to have sex with my wife while I watch?” and was clearly not going to let a merely arctic reception dash his hopes. The wife in question - a bored-looking pencil sketch of a blonde supermodel - seemed to exist purely to agree with her husband and give Rylee a look that said that the sex would be a wonderfully pleasurable exercise in athletic hate-fucking, though she had relaxed the moment Rylee’s disinterest in the veiled proposition became apparent.

Snubbing the lecherous creep would have been in violation of her briefing, however. Rylee had been given explicit instructions to try and leave a positive impression on everyone there regardless of species or allegiance, so she spun a careful half-truth that left the wife satisfied that Rylee wouldn’t be in their bed tonight and the ambassador equally hopeful that she would, and excused herself in search of more tolerable company.

She found it in the form of a small knot of Gaoians. Their body language was a little hard to read, but looking at which way their feet pointed she decided that the group was having two separate conversations - one between four males with dark colouration and a tall female with much more silver and white in her fur. The other conversation was between an obviously younger female and… she peered at the markings on his face for a careful second to make sure…

“Goruu!”

The Gaoian pilot looked up and around at the happy exclamation of his name, and his ears pricked up adorably. “Rylee!” he said, and the translator filled his tone with genuine gladness to see her. “I was told you were here somewhere.”

They shook hands, gently. “Rylee, this is Sister Niral. Niral, Captain Rylee Jackson, pilot of Earth’s first superluminal vessel.”

“Ah, so this is the one you wouldn’t shut up about." Niral teased. She shook Rylee’s hand also, and both women met each others’ gazes and stifled giggles as the young male’s ears drooped a little, cementing Rylee’s conviction that she liked Gaoians.

“I guess Pandora made an impression." she commented.

“You both did.” Niral said. “Truthfully, if you were a Sister, I’d be a little bit jealous.”

“You two are together?”

“I’m… not averse to the idea.” Niral said, mischievously flattening her ears sideways. Rylee had to admire her cool and confidence, she didn’t even glance backwards to see Goruu’s expression prick up in delight that completely ignored species boundaries.

“Well, nothing to be jealous of here.” Rylee said, and winked at Goruu. “I’d break him.”

Niral chittered a nervous laugh as Goruu wilted in embarrassment, turning heads from the other Gaoian group, who dropped their conversation and joined the new one around Rylee. The tallest and probably oldest male scratched the top of Goruu’s head, further contributing to his embarrassment.

“Ah, Rylee Jackson, this is Mother Yimyi.” Niral introduced her, then indicated the older male who had scratched Goruu’s head. “Clan-Father Amren of Clan Firefang, Fathers Gu and Yemin, and Brother Roni.”

Rylee decided she was glad that Amren had been facing away from her when she first approached the group or else she might have mistaken him for Goruu. Aside from some extra grey fur, his markings were practically identical to the younger male’s. Family resemblance?

There was an exchange of polite small-talk, which Rylee had only limited reserves of patience for: she decide to make the conversation mean something.

“I’ll confess.” she said, picking her words carefully “I was a little surprised to run into a familiar face at this little soiree."

“You’re wondering what the tukki the Gaoians are doing at an Alliance party, seeing as we’re members of the Dominion councils." Mother Yimyi said, cutting straight through the delicate language, and drawing a generally amused and agreeable response from the males. Rylee decided that she really liked Gaoians, and relaxed.

“That, yes.” she agreed.

Amren scratched his ear and indicated, with a subtle tilt of his head, the whole room. The walls have ears was a subtle reminder that didn’t need translating. “As the Celzi are keen to point out, theirs is a war of secession based on the right to self-determination.” he said. “Which is a principle that we stand behind.”

“I sense a “but” coming…” Rylee said.

“But.” Yimyi said “we have reservations about the Celzi’s “you get what you grab” approach to territory. The Dominion, for all its flaws, and for all the arrogance that makes it think it can sell every planet in the galaxy and make money off the sale, at least offers a moderated and civil approach to expansion and colonisation.”

“So you’re here looking to… what, build bridges? Heal the rift?”

“It’s not a plan that all of the clans agree with. Many of our idiot gung-ho warrior clans are eager to pitch in with the war.” Yimyi said.

“The Firefangs are a warrior clan.” Amren pointed out, though his tone carried no objection.

“But not an idiot gung-ho one.” Yimyi soothed.

“What’s holding them back?” Rylee asked her.

“The Clan of Females. Our attitude is that we don’t feel all of the available diplomatic options have been exhausted yet and we are not happy to fully commit Gao to a war that was started by other species when there are still opportunities for non-violent contact.” She looked, if Rylee was any judge, smug. “And the male clans don’t do anything which the Mother-Supreme has expressed disapproval for, if they’re smart."

She tilted her head, but Rylee wasn’t sure what, if anything, the gesture meant. “In truth, your own species’ ascension has provided an excellent opportunity. Inside the Sol demilitarized zone, with these two embassy stations in place, we now have the most open and accessible point of contact between the two sides for… twenty cycles or longer.”

“Then there’s the way your own factions are seeking to play the rivalry to your advantage” Amren interjected. “Both sides know that for the human race to commit to siding with the other would be disastrous. Not least because a lot of hapless, innocent soldiers would get crushed by a force who drastically outmatch them. We’re hoping to persuade the Alliance and Dominion both that it’s in the best interests of both factions to declare a ceasefire and negotiate a permanent peace before that happens.”

“Know when to walk away with what you’ve already got while you still have it, kind of thing?”

“Exactly. An astute and sensible policy.” Yimyi said approvingly.

“I learned it from a very wise man called Kenny Rogers.”

An aide approached and murmured something quietly to Mother Yimyi, who took Father Amren’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us, it seems the Qinis ambassador wishes to speak with us.”

“Of course.” Rylee said.

The other Fathers and Brother also made their apologies and scattered to mingle with the assorted Alliance members and humans.

“Want to get out of here?” Niral asked.

“More than anything. Are we allowed to?”

“We have talamay and a game you might like in the shuttle." Goruu said.

“Lead on.”

The Gaoian diplomatic shuttle turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. The similarity in size between Gaoians and humans meant that Rylee felt nicely accomodated-for, rather than dwarfed by furniture built larger than human demands required.

Goruu handed her a glass of Talamay. “Be warned, I heard this stuff does something funny to humans.”

“Funny how?” Rylee asked, sniffing it.

“There’s a human living on our homeworld.” Niral said. “Apparently after a few glasses of talamay she giggled a lot, fell asleep and woke up feeling awful."

“I thought I smelled alcohol." Rylee said. “Screw it, I’m off duty.” she took a sip and was rewarded by something that tasted surprisingly like Fanta.

The Gaoians shared a faintly confused glance. “The alcohol? That just flavours it and kills microorganisms… doesn’t it?” Goruu asked.

“You guys don’t get drunk?”

Again there was a blank look. “The translator seems to be getting confused?” Niral said. “Of course we aren’t imbibed, we imbibe the drink."

“Nono. Intoxicated?”

“That word didn’t even translate.”

“Really? Okay, well it means, like…. altered brain chemistry leading to a changed state of mind.”

Difficult though it was to read their expressions, Niral and Goruu were clearly drawing a complete blank.

“…wow. You guys are missing out. What’s this game?”

They introduced it to her. As a veteran of countless airbase games of poker, picking up the bidding and bluffing side of the game was trivial, though the unfamiliar cards and a few different mechanics kept it interesting and cost her a couple of early hands. A couple of hours flashed by with all the speed of good fun, good company and good drink, and all three of them became quite thoroughly acquainted as they played.

Maybe it was just the alcohol giving her confidence, but she was feeling certain that she was about to lure Goruu into running a perfectly solid hand into the teeth of her own carefully-assembled counter to it when something in the Firefang’s pocket chirruped. He fished out a device that looked practically identical to a smartphone, consulted it, and growled.

“They need me back at the party.” he said. “Hopefully I won’t be long….”

“We’ll be fine.” Niral assured him, and watched him go with what Rylee took for undisguised physical attraction.

She laughed as the Sister turned back and skewed her ears, embarrassed. “Oh yeah, you two are gonna bang.” she said.

Niral gave her a curious look. “You’re very… forthright about that.”

“I’m teasing, Niral. I can’t blame you, he’s a great guy.”

This earned her an even stranger look.

“…what?” She asked.

“We only just met, Rylee… do you mind if I ask you a very personal question?”

Rylee sipped her Talamay then shrugged. “Sure.”

“That’s three times now you’ve spoken about Goruu as if you’d consider him as a potential mate.”

“I have?”

Niral ducked her head in what Rylee had learned was an emphatic Gaori nod. “You said ‘I’d break him’, you just said that he’s a ‘great guy’.”

Rylee sipped her drink, mentally noting that she’d need to stop soon: her head was starting to go genuinely fuzzy. “Does that bother you?”

“Well… maybe this is just a species thing, but that’s how a fellow Gaoian female would talk if she was also eyeing him up for a mating contract. And just before that you sounded as if you thought the idea of me and him was…”

“Hot?”

“…Appealing.”

“So what’s your question, Niral?”

“Are you?”

“Am I…. what, are you asking if I would have sex with Goruu if I could?”

“I… well, I’m not sure. That’s a very strange idea to me, Rylee. But… okay, would you?”

Rylee felt an uncharacteristic rush of heat to her ears but forced herself to be truthful. “Privately, just between us girls? …I don’t know. Part of me wants to,” she confessed.

Niral made a soft growling noise, which Rylee speculated could only mean disbelief. “But he’s not even your species!” she objected.

“So?”

“You couldn’t have cubs!”

“So… okay, is sex only about having cubs for you guys?” Rylee asked.

“That’s why we have mating contracts. Are you saying your species do it for other reasons?”

Rylee thought about that for a second, then sat up and set her drink down. “How would you react if I told you that I’ve had sex with other women?” She asked.

“…I… that’s just such an alien idea, Rylee. Why would you want to? Two females can’t have cubs together."

“Because it’s fun! Doesn’t sex feel good for Gaoians though? Physically? Does the word ‘orgasm’ translate for you guys?”

“Well… yes. To both questions.” Niral said. Her ears were pointing almost completely opposite directions to one another: had she been human, Rylee suspected that Niral would have been bright red, squirming in her seat and fidgeting with her hands. “But that’s just… nice, you know? It’s not the point of mating."

“Okay, so that’s how things are for your species. Fair enough.” Rylee said. “For mine, sex is about a whole lot more than having children. It’s… equally or even more about fun, pleasure and emotional intimacy." Rylee said. “That’s more true for some people than for others, but in my case I don’t plan on ever having cu-, uh, children.”

“…You don’t? Ever?!"

“Nope. I’m doing important work where I am. Getting pregnant and taking maternity leave would take me away from all the action, and by the time that changes, I’ll be too old. But I like getting laid, and all I’m after from sex is the fun and not the commitment.”

She poured herself another drink and rested her head back again. Niral couldn’t resist probing for more information, however. Strange though it was, she hadn’t come to Earth out of a lack of fascination for this species, and Rylee had opened up a whole world of new questions that she would prefer not to leave unanswered.

“But… mating still leads to procreation for your kind, right? Can you consciously choose not to have cubs?”

“In a way… here.” Rylee stood up and shrugged out of her jacket, tugged off her tie and pulled her shirt over her head. She sat down wearing only a dark grey undergarment that covered and restrained her breasts.

Niral’s jaw threatened to drop. The human pilot’s body was an education in alien anatomy all by itself, layered in muscle atop solid muscle, each leaving a firm impression through the skin. There were so many of them! The overall effect was alien, but not ugly: Rylee’s body hinted at the incredible strength that was stored inside it, but also at agility, poise and exceptional control.

Seeing her staring, Rylee barked one of those human laughs, looked up, grabbed a structural spar on the ceiling and, after testing its weight-bearing capacity, hauled herself up into the air, pulling her legs up until they were pointed straight out in front of her, parallel with the ground. She found her pose and became perfectly still, a study in huge forces all finely balanced against one another.

“I had two dreams when I was a little girl. I was either going to be an astronaut, or join Cirque du Soleil" she said, conversationally. In a rapid yet smooth movement she flipped around until she was gripping the bar behind her, and lowered herself back to the deck. She alighted with a thump, and wobbled a bit on her feet.

“Woo. Yeah, I’ve had enough Talamay.” she said, collapsing back onto the couch, which creaked alarmingly under the impact of a weight it hadn’t been designed to handle.

“That was incred… wait, you can do that in Earth gravity?" Niral asked.

“Sure can! I can’t hold it for as long but… yeah, I need to show you Cirque du Soleil sometime, those guys make me look clumsy.”

She finished her drink and slid the bottle away from her. “Anyway… about choosing to not get pregnant from sex: feel here.” she said, indicating a crease between two muscles in her upper arm, neither of which even existed on Gaoians. Niral did so, tentatively, and recoiled when Rylee laughed and jerked away. “Firmer! You can’t hurt me and if you don’t really go for it you’ll just tickle me.” the human demanded.

Niral ducked her head in a nod and complied, firmly trying to bury her fingers in Rylee’s arm. It was like trying to push her hand through Tarimit wood but she felt, just below the surface, a little nub of matter that was even harder than the flesh around it.

“What is that?” She asked.

“Contraceptive implant. It releases a hormone that occurs naturally in human women and stops us from ovulating when we’re pregnant. Basically, it tricks my body into thinking I’m pregnant all the time, so I never actually get pregnant. So I can have all the sex I like without risking having a cu- a child."

“But if you did have one, couldn’t your Sisters… no, wait, you don’t have a clan of females, do you?”

“Nope. If I had a kid, I’d either have to give up my career to look after them, which I’m not willing to do, or put them up for adoption or foist them on my brother or parents, which sounds immoral and irresponsible to me. And while I’m pro-choice, I’m dead-set against ever having an abortion myself, so I’m always care… what?” She paused upon seeing Niral’s expression.

“Abortion?”

“Ah… yeah. Termination of pregnancy.”

“You’d KILL an unwanted cub?” Niral looked sickened and horrified, her ears flattened themselves back along her skull and her eyes widened.

"I wouldn’t!" Rylee protested. “That’s how I see it too, I think it’s disgusting and wrong, and I take every precaution I can to make sure I never need to even consider it.”

“But you said… pro-choice? So you think other human women should be allowed to do that?”

“I think they should have the choice. When they choose to do that, well… it’s on their soul, not mine.” Rylee lamented. “Nobody wants for that to happen, nobody likes it, it’s just… you know, it’s seen as being the better alternative to giving the child a shitty life, you know? And the fact is that giving people the choice and the education to avoid having to make it works a lot better than just outright banning the practice."

Niral still looked shaken, but she collected herself and thought about it. “I… that’s incredibly sad, Rylee. And upsetting. To think that a mother could ever find herself weighing her cub’s happy future against its life and deciding the kindest thing to do would be to…" She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

The human had the decency to look troubled. “Yeah.” she agreed.

“Couldn’t you just… not have sex unless and until you were willing to have little ones?”

Rylee sighed. “Some people try. They don’t usually succeed. We’ve got this whole “abstinence-only” thing where I’m from, and the kids who try to follow it are the ones who usually wind up having babies first because they can’t stop themselves, they get horny, they get laid, they don’t take the right precautions and… boom. Unwanted teenage pregnancy, and that often leads to a lot of problems for the child down the line.”

“It’s that powerful?” Niral inquired. “Your mating drive, I mean? That you can’t stop yourselves?”

“Hell yes. We do all kinds of stupid shit when it overtakes us: completely lose our focus, act without thought for the consequences…”

Enlightenment smote Niral in the forehead. “OH! You’re like the Vgork!”

Rylee frowned. “I don’t think I’ve met a Vgork…”

“Their males have this thing where the more highly placed they are in the social order, the more often they need to mate or else they’re overcome by a berserk rage. It usually ends badly.” Niral looked alarmed “Oh stars, and you’re a lot stronger and harder to subdue than they are…"

“No! No, that sounds a lot worse than we have it.” Rylee interrupted, soothingly. “We just get irrational and careless, but we CAN restrain ourselves. It’s just uncomfortable and distressing. Physically painful, even. So yes, we could ‘just not have sex’, but at the very least it’s frustrating."

She set her head back again, staring off at nothing.

“And… you feel the mating urge towards Goruu? Despite that he’s not human?” Niral asked.

Rylee didn’t look up. “It’s…not exactly. It’s more like… I like Goruu as a person; I hope we’ll be friends, and usually I like to have sex with my friends. That’s kinda colliding with the fact that he’s not human in my head and, yeah, it’s weird for me too."

She looked up and smiled sheepishly. “And I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, Niral, but the same goes for you.”

Niral gave her a long, flat-eared stare. “It does?” she squeaked.

“Absolutely!” Rylee exclaimed. “And if you’re wondering how to take that, take it as a compliment. You’re a beautiful person. But neither of you are interested and even if you were we couldn’t possibly do it without you risking serious injury, so that’s where it ends.”

She sighed. “I know I’ve said that the, uh, ‘urge’ is a powerful thing, but emotionally well-balanced people have no problem with their interest not being reciprocated, and I wouldn’t even be up here if a lot of highly qualified people didn’t agree that I’m emotionally well-balanced. So yes, I ‘feel the urge’ towards both of you, but it’s under control and fading. But if there was no physical danger involved and if you both consented to it, I’d jump at the chance. Does that sound fair?”

“It sounds very strange and alien, but… You’re not Gaoian, I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t behave exactly like Gaoians do. So, yes, that sounds fair.”

“Friends?”

Niral looked the human in the eyes, and the vulnerability in the deathworlder’s expression took the worst off that discomfort. For all the intimidating controlled strength and thoroughly alien sexual morality, she was still talking to a fellow emotional sophont who had exposed herself to potentially serious social consequences out of trust and honesty. The human immediately became less dangerously alien in her eyes, and was again just Rylee.

“…Friends.” she agreed, and chittered happily when Rylee sagged with relief.

“Thank you, Niral.”

“I do have one more question, though.” Niral told her, as Rylee began to put her shirt back on.

“Shoot.”

“Is your attitude… typical? Of humans?”

“Oh, no! No! Far from it. I’m REALLY open-minded, and I decided a long time ago not to have any hangups about it.” Rylee said.

“Why?”

“Because the people who mind don’t matter, and the people who matter don’t mind.”

Niral thought about this. “I think that’s probably not an idea that works so well for Gaoians.” she said. “But you ARE controversial, then?”

Rylee grimaced. “Controversial, yeah. That’s putting it mildly. There are places on Earth where I’d be buried up to my neck and have rocks thrown at my head for being so sexually liberated.”

“…I’m sorry, was that an exaggeration or not? Because after the abortion thing…”

Rylee looked uncomfortable and a touch ashamed. “It wasn’t. Sadly.”

Again there was that disbelieving chirrup from Niral and an expression of mild horror.

“We can be kind of shitty to one another sometimes.” Rylee said. “I’d never do something like that and neither would anybody I care to associate with.”

“I understand.” Niral told her. “There are violent bigots in every species.”

Rylee smiled, and the last of the tension fled her entirely. “Thank you for understanding, Niral.”

“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me these things."

“What things?” Goruu asked, stepping back into the shuttle.

“…Female! Female things.” Niral squeaked, scooping up her cards. Goruu hesitated, then quirked his head in a Gaoian shrug and sat down at the card game again.

Rylee suppressed her smile. Gaoians were so cute sometimes.

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility

Martin Tremblay’s welcome to the Operation Stolen Star briefing room was the squeal of forty chairs as forty pairs of boots propelled their wearers to attention.

“As you were.” he said, acknowledging the collective respect and approaching the lectern at the front of the room as the men sat back down.

Its current occupant, Captain Owen Powell, was the commanding officer of the Stolen Star unit, and Tremblay couldn’t have asked for a better unit lead. Powell had regained the rank of Captain after enduring the British special forces tradition of demotion back to Private when he had joined the Special Boat Service.

“General.” He said.

“Apparently I have to make a speech.” Tremblay said, to general mirth. “I promise it’ll be quick.”

Powell stepped aside. “Take it away, sir.”

Tremblay adjusted the lectern’s microphone and considered the men in front of him for a second. Canadians, British, Americans, Australians, and a smattering of others, all with long, impressive and heavily classified service records.

“The last hundred years” he began “have been full of firsts. Not all of them were illustrious ones. But they’re all worth remembering. The first world war, the first use of a nuclear weapon… but I think there have been many more positive ones than negative: The first man in space, the first man on the moon, the first woman to travel faster than light.”

“Except.” he said, adjusting the mic again “…not really. Yuri Gagarin, it turns out, was not the first person in space, nor was Rylee Jackson the first to exceed lightspeed. Those honours both, according to the information we have, belong to a Roman soldier called Lucius Bellator Maximus."

“Have we had our heroes stripped from us by alien action? No. Because that Roman didn’t go into space knowingly or willingly. Gagarin did. Jackson did. And it was human skill, science and engineering that let them do it.

“So, are you going to be the first men to set foot on an alien world? No. Are you going to be the first men we send there? Absolutely, and that’s an honour that sets you alongside the giants of history."

“Theirs, however, were missions of discovery. Their objectives were to break new boundaries for the sake of breaking them, to prove that they could be broken. You are called to something higher. Not to impugn discovery as a cause, but I personally rate freedom even more highly, and you are being called upon to travel to another world not only to prove that it can be done, but to defend that world and to turn it into the vehicle of our liberation from a prison we do not deserve."

“The future liberty of the human race may rest on your ability to get this job done. I am in absolutely no doubt that we have never been in safer hands.”

There was polite applause as he stepped back, and shared a salute with Powell. “Carry on, Captain.”

“The Ambassadorial party is staying on this station overnight.” Goruu said, after Rylee had gone. It had been surprising and both alarming and funny to see the usually graceful human pilot stumble back towards the spartan bunk she had erected for herself under one of Pandora’s wings, failing to even keep to a straight line.

“They’ve had quarters made up for them?” Niral asked him.

“Yes. There are nest-beds up there for us as well…”

“That’s a pity… and here I thought we had some privacy tonight. I had this contract all ready for you to sign…” Niral said, holding it up.

The expression of delight on Goruu’s face was priceless.

Cimbrean

Jennifer Delaney. Mid-twenties, space-babe pirate queen, colonial governor, wilderness survival expert, full of alien medicine and thus possibly immortal, and all alone.

Well, except that the last time she’d done piracy was months ago now, so that maybe didn’t count any longer, and the colony in question had been a pile of smoking rubble the last time she laid eyes on it. Being bombarded from orbit and then invaded tended to do that to a place. They’d made a good escape there, after an “out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire” fashion.

The point was that the pirate queen and colonial governor bits maybe didn’t apply any longer. But she was keeping the space-babe part.

And then there had been… other stuff. Honestly, it was all kind of a blur, now. A long, confusing, relentlessly violent blur that she knew had involved nearly dying a couple of times. She’d lost track of Darragh who was maybe kind of useless but at least he’d have been something resembling company right now. And she was trying not to think about Adrian’s fate, with all that fecking fire foam that did weird things to their brains, and the ship venting atmosphere, and the way she’d left him to die because if she’d tried to save him they’d have both perished…

She was trying, she reminded herself irritably, not to think about it.

She had only ever bothered to remember one planet’s coordinates, and that fact had saved her life… but then the bastard escape pod had landed on the wrong end of the continent.

Bereft of alternatives, she’d squared her shoulders, hoisted her gear and started walking.

At least Cimbrean was a Class 4 world, which meant that survival wasn’t exactly difficult… But her four-month trek across half a hemisphere had turned up a leaf that, when boiled, produced something that tasted almost like a cup of sweet tea. Which was nice.

On reflection, Jennifer Delaney, mid-twenties, space-babe discoverer of almost tea, ex-pirate and governor of a hole in the ground just didn’t have the same ring to it.

“Shut up, Jen.” She chastised herself. That muddled second-guessing of herself was an Old Jen habit. But the old Jen would have dithered and died alongside Adrian aboard that cruiser. The old Jen wouldn’t have seen a five-thousand- whatever hike across a whole continent and just accepted it as the next in a long series of trials she would overcome. The old Jen would have broken down in tears at least twice as often during these last four months as the new Jen had.

Pirate queen and colonial governor or not, she was toughened, a survivor, somebody who knew how to keep putting one foot in front of the other no matter what a sadistic universe decided to throw at her. She had all of that that going for her.

Everything else, not so much. Her shoes had given up their ghosts inside the first week of hiking, and while the foot-wraps she had fashioned from the sleeves of her shirt had stopped her feet getting cut up and bloody, they hadn’t stopped her soles from hardening to the consistency of her nan’s patent ossified soda bread. The datapad that had been guiding her back to the only thing that even vaguely resembled civilisation on this world was a more recent casualty, lost in a cliff-based accident.

That had been four valleys ago. It was remarkable just how hard it was to find the bombed-out ruin of a mansion without a map. At least she had been all but on top of it when the little device had gone bouncing down the rocks, never to be recovered. She had only needed to explore four valleys before the fourth finally yielded her glimpse of home… at the other end of it, a good day’s trek away, and night was falling.

Oh well, it wouldn’t be the last time she made camp anyway. And at least there were lots of the sort-of-tea bush around.

She set up her camp with the practiced skill of somebody who had done it every night in a row for four months, boiled herself a cup of tea-ish and a healthy vegetable stew, and fell asleep beside the fire.

Morning brought warm sunshine and morning mist, which she set off through in the best mood she’d felt for some time, walking stick in hand. Something birdlike thrummed past her head and perched in a nearby tree, angled its multifaceted eyes at her and preened a shimmering wing, singing a warbling song that reminded her of a Nightingale. It was beautiful.

Her well-thrown rock knocked it off its perch with a squawk.

Happily singing the chorus to “Linger” - the only part of the song she could remember - she strapped the bird-ish’s broken carcass to her bag. “Meat stew tonight!” she told it.

Somewhere inside her, the old Jen, the I. T. girl who had been inconsolable for a week when her gerbil had died, whimpered. The new Jen, however, was a practical, weathered survivor and ignored the old Jen’s objections in favour of valuable protein.

That was her day, walking along the soft sort-of-grass by a burbling stream in the warm summer sunshine of an alien world, collecting alien plants, herbs and sort-of-mushrooms and telling a dead alien sort-of-bird about how she was going to cook it. It was mid-afternoon when she stepped out of the woods and found herself standing in front of the palace ruins. The front gardens, originally a gorgeous masterwork of horticulture tended by little drones and automated systems, had been bombed down to a muddy paste, and were now grown over by a thicket of small bushes and tall sort-of-grass.

“And you thought you’d never make it on your own, you eejit.” she told herself aloud, grinning at her own success.

Despite the bombardment, the landscaping was still mostly intact, as were the stone steps that curved around what had once been an ornamental pond but was now a crater, and up to the front of the building itself, which was basically an expanse of rubble interestingly punctuated by half-intact walls.

Oh well, at least there was the material here to get a roof over her head, if nothing else.

She set her bag down by what had once been the front entrance, leaned her walking stick against it, and began to explore the ruins. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, exactly: a change of clothes, maybe, or some emergency rations. What she found instead was her bath.

It was almost perfectly intact, standing proud in the middle of its tiled bathroom floor, though the rest of the bathroom was long gone. A few shrapnel scars notwithstanding, there it was: her bath.

Hardly daring to hope, she crept up to it, and turned the faucet on. There was a gurgle, and horrible brown sludge vomited out of the tap.

Oh well. You couldn’t have everything in life. She’d just have to haul and boil the water herself.

Fetching enough water to fill the bath was a job that took most of her remaining daylight hours. She made and ate her not-quite-bird stew, slept, feeling filthy and gritty, and dreamed of hot water.

It was a dream that she spent the whole of the next day’s morning and afternoon turning into a reality. From the moment she woke she set to work on it, building her campfire and setting up the small boiling tin that had been in her escape pod right next to the bath. For hours, she got into a rhythm of scooping out some water, boiling it, pouring it in, scooping some out, boiling it, foraging for firewood… The water heated so slowly, but it definitely heated, and if there was one thing that Jen had learned from her months of cross-country hiking, it was how to let her mind entertain itself while the body worked.

Finally, by the early evening, the bath was the perfect temperature: steaming, but not painful. She had no soap, no bubble-bath foam or bath bombs, but it was still a hot bath, the first she’d had in months and months.

Smiling like all was right with the world, she disrobed, stepped up onto the bath’s plinth, raised her foot and dipped it gently in. A long sigh of the deepest contentment escaped from her.

B-BOOMMmm..

She looked up. There was a speck of brightness in the sky, a spaceship that gleamed in the sunlight, casting its sonic boom ahead of it as it lost speed and turned.

Jennifer Delaney addressed the universe in general: “Fuck. You.”

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility

The middle of the chamber was a careful scaffolding, built to millimeter tolerances, all of which had been filled by vehicles. Three Navistar 7000 trucks were squeezed in, each full of crates, bags, boxes and, here and there, just enough room for the soldiers to sit, each hugging his gear. Most of the remaining space was taken up by a pair of Kawasaki Mules, and the last was occupied by an example of the very latest in human military technology.

Tremblay was considering it when the troopers arrived. They had all pitched in with parking and loading the trucks the night before, and were now shaved, rested, geared up, well fed and as ready for indefinite deployment off-world as anybody ever could be.

It wasn’t an occasion for pomp or speeches. The project was top-secret for a reason. There were no politicians present, only soldiers ready for deployment, and the gaggle of military scientists who would be sending them there.

Captain Powell joined him by the weapon system.

“I’m amazed they agreed to release one of these for the colony’s use.” Tremblay commented.

“Bit disappointing really. I was pushing for a WERBS.” Powell said, drawing a laugh from the general.

“You may as well have asked for a couple of nukes, eh?” Tremblay told him. “Besides, ET’s going to brown his pants enough when they see this thing in action.”

"If, sir." Powell said, not bothering to disguise his smug confidence. "If they see it in action."

“Fair point.” Tremblay turned to the SBS officer and extended a hand, which Powell shook. “It’s been a pleasure having you on base, Captain.”

“I bet it has.” Powell grinned.

Tremblay suppressed his smirk. “Carry on, captain.”

“Sir.”

As the captain shouted his men into place on the trucks, Tremblay stepped back across the concrete to where Ted Bartlett was tapping on a tablet computer, looking thoughtful.

“You’re certain you got that inertia problem sorted out?" Tremblay asked him, quietly so none of the soldiers could hear.

“Two months ago, general.” Bartlett reassured him.

“…Good.” Tremblay said, watching the men load up. “Good.”

Bartlett tapped out a few last things, then looked up. “All aboard? Zone clear?” He shouted. There was a general thumbs-up and nodding. “Zone clear!” He shouted, and tapped a button on the tablet.

A block of purest possible black immediately enclosed the trucks, Mules, soldiers and weapon system.

“Don’t you think a countdown might have been appropriate?” Tremblay asked as the scientists and technicians began to vacate the vacuum chamber. “Give it a sense of occasion?”

They were the last to step through the pressure door, which Bartlett closed and locked, before acknowledging the question with a shrug.

“Woops.”

“That was definitely a camp back there… look, here’s a pack and walking stick.”

Kirk looked around, holding some kind of scanning device, then pointed with one of his longer arms. “There’s a heat signature over… that way.” he said, and stepped daintily over the rubble to pursue it.

Julian followed, weaving through the bombed-out shell of what had obviously been a lavishly grand and expensive property once upon a time.

The heat signature turned out to be a huge stone bath, steaming gently. Relaxing in it was a red-haired woman, head resting on the side, eyes closed, floating gently with her arms splayed and her breasts just breaking the surface of the water.

“Woah!” Julian exclaimed and turned a one-eighty, feeling heat rush to his cheeks.

“You boys are either an hour too early, or four months too late, and I don’t know which.” said the woman. Irishness lilted off every syllable, heavy with weary resignation. “Go away, I’m having a bath.”

Kirk leaned down and whispered in Julian’s ear: “Any advice on how to deal with… this?”

Julian shook his head, eyes wide as he stared desperately off towards the distant mountains - no! Not the mountains, the hills - no! The wall, yes. The wall seemed safe. “You’re on your own.”

Kirk chuffed a loud coughing sound, which Julian had learned was the equivalent of clearing his throat. “Jennifer Delaney, I presume.” He stated, making a good shot at seeming to be completely unfazed. Julian knew there was no reason why he should be - she wasn’t his species, and aliens seemed to have no hangups about nudity, but after that reception, being fazed should have gone as read.

There was a sigh, and a sloshing of water. “I’m not going to persuade you to go away, am I? Aye, that’s me. Oh for crying out loud man, you can turn around. Am I the first woman you’ve seen in years or something?”

“Um… yes.” Julian said.

“Oh. Really? Well you can turn around anyway.”

Julian did so, carefully. She had turned and folded her arms atop the edge of the bath, and sunk down into the water a little. Technically, she was just as modest now as if she had been fully clothed, but that did little to pacify Julian’s starved libido.

“So who are you two, anyway?” she asked.

“I’m, uh. Julian.” he said. “Julian Etsicitty. This is Kirk.”

“Kirk?”

“Krrkktnkk A’ktnnzzik’tk.” clarified the man himself. “…Kirk. And yes, I’ve seen Star Trek.”

“I always preferred Doctor Who.” Jen said. “Etsicitty, that’s… what, Navajo?”

“Uh… yeah. I’m impressed.”

“I used to work in I. T.” she said, plainly convinced that this was an explanation. When their blank expressions told her that it wasn’t, she sighed and clarified: “lots of boring office hours sat on a computer with nothing to do, lots of clicks on the “random” button on Wikipedia because there are only so many cat pictures a girl can look… at… look, I’m trying to take a bath here."

“Here? Now?” Julian asked.

“I hiked for four months halfway across a continent to get to this bath. I spent all day filling it myself by boiling water in a tin this big.” She spread her hands to demonstrate and Julian cursed his eyes for their traitorous flash downwards. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to notice. “I’m not getting out until I’m good and soaked, not even if the planet’s exploding.”

“We, ah… came here to help you get Cimbrean up and running as a colony of Earth…” Kirk said, looking around at the desolation.

“Great! Thank you! I could use the help. But right now I. Am. Taking. A. Bath." she repeated. “If you boys would be so kind as to go get started on doing whatever it is you’re going to do, I’ll join you as soon as I’m done here, how does that sound?”

It sounded absurd to Julian, but he would have sooner gone back to Nightmare armed with nothing more than a toothpick than say so to Jen’s face. Fortunately, Kirk seemed able to take almost anything in his stride, and so he simply bowed and said “As you wish, governor. I’ll oversee the deployment personally.”

“Thank you.”

“Hang on!” Julian protested. “What happened here? Kirk said this was a mansion last time he saw it."

“Taking a bath.”

“But…!”

“Bath!”

“Come on, Julian.” Kirk said, gripping him by the arm and politely pulling him away. Julian emphatically did not look back as Delaney rolled back over with a splash and a happy sigh.

“CONSIG is green!”

“On schedule, too.” Bartlett said, happily. “Pressure is at… twenty millibar. We’ve passed the line, go to send.”

“Capacitors primed, ready to release, stage one field at niner-eight per cent.”

“Right.” Bartlett acknowledged General Tremblay with a nod. “Sending in three… two… one… Send.”

Inside the Jump Array chamber, vast amounts of energy were shunted from alien- derived supercapacitors into an arch of exotic equipment that swept up and over the black cuboid of stasis-enclosed man and machine. There was a ripple, like light on the surface of a lake, and the stasis field and everything inside it vanished.

The floor shook with a solid thump, and in the total silence of near-vacuum, a centimeter-long piece of truck wing mirror fell to the concrete, neatly snipped off by the edge of the spacetime distortion field..

“Major…” Tremblay said.

Bartlett grimaced. “Woops.”

Jennifer Delaney, mid twenties, space-babe pirate queen, planetary governor, wilderness survival expert, possibly immortal, discoverer of alien space tea and feeling truly clean for the first time in much too long.

Her clothes, however, were not clean. Not even remotely. They were stained, greasy, torn, and, not unsurprisingly, had an undignified aroma to them as if they had been worn by a sweaty young woman for four whole months, along with all that entailed.

Why did she even still have them? Why didn’t she have a towel? She’d had plenty of time to look for one.

She threw the vile garments into the bath in the (probably forlorn) hope that this might result in them becoming at least clean_er_ to the point of being viable to wear until a replacement showed up, and then marched nude out of the bathroom and towards where her bedroom had once been. Hopefully something of the small wardrobe she had accumulated there might still be intact enough to salvage, or fashion some crude clothing from.

Navigating a demolished alien palace by memory turned out to be trickier than simply remembering where the walls and stuff had been, though, and pretty soon she found herself thoroughly lost. She was just debating swallowing her pride and calling for this “Kirk” fella to help her out when she rounded a corner and found herself on the back patio.

There were at least thirty men there, all unloading crates and equipment from the back of several large green military trucks that had been parked on what was once the lawn. They gave a general impression of soldier-ness, and were all staring at her.

The old Jen, who’d had nightmares about pretty much this exact scenario, surfaced long enough to mutter, under her breath, the complaint. “Oh, fuck everything“, but then the new Jen was back in control.

She planted her hands firmly on her hips, issued a death glare which caused a platoon of hardened veteran special-forces soldiers to start desperately looking at everything but her, and demanded:

“Well? Which one of you eejits wants to stop gawking first and hand me some fecking clothes?”

Chapter 15
Chapter 12: “Only Human” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Three years and seven months AV
Alliance Embassy Station, Sol

Rylee Jackson woke, and groaned. Talamay must have been stronger than it had tasted.

She groaned even louder when the previous night’s conversation came back to her, and buried her face in her pillow for a second, then rolled over and look up at Pandora’s wing, flung over her cot like a protective lover’s arm.

She spoke the word that heralded a bad start to any day: “Shit.”

Civilian Trade Station 1039: “Infinity Awaits”

Fear was a sickly sensation in Kttrvk’s long throat as he read the message again to be certain of its content.

He read it a third time, just in case.

When a fourth reading still produced no miraculous change in its content, he concluded that its content must therefore be real, and set about writing a reply.

It was a simple reply:

"Sir,

As I explained in my previous letter, the trade route you have designated for our shipment is currently the target of Hunter raids. Four more vesselss have been hit since I sent that letter, all comparatively small: A freighter the size of the Nkvcqtz will be a target they cannot resist.

Our cargo of mineral ores is non-perishable and will come to no harm should we take the slightly longer route that I suggested. I appreciate that the client expects prompt delivery, but I feel certain that they would prefer the shipment arrive slightly delayed, than never arrive at all because the freighter carrying it was raided by Hunters and the personnel and children on board, devoured.

_I object in the strongest possible terms to these orders, and request - again

• that you authorise us to take the longer route._

-Shipmaster Kttrvk.

He sent it, and the message was scooped up by a handler program, to be updated onto the galactic network in the next regular synchronization, and from there to the desk of his supervisor.

He knew in his bones, however, that the appeal was futile.

Cimbrean

Jennifer Delaney. Mid-twenties, entirely out of fucks to give about being a pirate queen, colonial governor or immortal, but not letting go of the space- babe part. Currently wearing fatigues, army boots and a thick black woollen jumper, and contemplating the bar of actual chocolate on the table in front of her, waiting for the alarm to ring or the spaceship to land or whatever else would interrupt her attempt to enjoy it.

She was also reflecting that, while showing up completely arse-naked and demanding to be clothed wouldn’t have been her first choice in ice-breakers - wouldn’t even have made the top hundred - it had undeniably worked. Apparently the soldiers respected a woman who didn’t give two shits for embarrassment and just asked for a pair of pants. She would have expected to be on the receiving end of a lot of lecherous jokes and sly side-of-the-eye stares, but in fact they were, on the whole, treating her with deference and respect.

“Tastes better if you eat it with your mouth, love.”

Somewhere deep inside her, Old Jen was impressed and a little scared by the way that she didn’t jump, just turned in her seat to quickly assess whether the voice that had snuck up on her was a threat. Captain Owen Powell gave her a winning smile full of Yorkshire arrogance, and she relaxed a bit.

“Just… enjoying the moment.” she said. “And don’t call me “love”.”

Powell nodded. “Aye, sorry. Force of habit. I’d ask if I can come in, but this is my office, so…”

He entered and sat down on the other stool, on the opposite side of the desk. “So, are you going to eat that?”

“Promise me nothing’s going to start exploding if I do?”

She wasn’t sure what she had expected Powell’s reaction to be: a laugh, maybe, or a joke. Not an understanding look in his eye. “Wish I could.” he said. “You’d best eat it fast, enjoy it while you can. In the army they trained us to brew a cup of tea every chance we get, because you never know when the next one’s going to show up.”

Jen breathed a little half-laugh. “That’s so fecking English…” she said.

Powell snorted. “Ten thousand lightyears from home and the Irish are still being fookin’ Irish.”

That got a genuine laugh. “Alright, fine. I’ll eat the fecking thing.” Jen conceded, and promptly made good on that promise.

Chocolate. Fuck yeah.

Mount Hope Cemetery, San Diego

“May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace.”

The solemn "Amen" which followed that petition was joined by all bar one of the graveside mourners. The priest closed his book, bowed solemnly, and turned away, leaving only the small knot of family and friends.

It was a good headstone, understated and handsome: just the name “Terri Boone” flanked by carved lilies, her dates of birth and death, and the quote "A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge." on round-topped blue slate.

“You’re not a praying man, Mister Jenkins?”

“I’m not, detective. Let’s… just leave it at that.”

“Fair enough.”

Gabriel Ares shuffled his feet and exhaled, feeling in his bones that the occasion should have really warranted something other than a glorious sunny day.

“Do you come to the funerals of all your cases?” Jenkins asked him.

“Not all, no. Just the ones that really get to me. You know, the stupid kid who got caught up in gang violence, or the young mother who died of a bleed on the brain after her husband hit her for the hundredth time… The streetwise P. I. who I kind of feel like I could have helped if I’d only listened.”

“Are you listening now?”

Jenkins was a good two heads taller than the diminutive Hispanic homicide cop, who looked up at him curiously.

“Listening to… who, now?” He asked.

“Ravi Singh, for one.”

“How do you…? Right, you had the login details.”

“I do, yeah. Downloaded the lot. You HAVE read it all?”

“Three times.” Ares told him. “She makes a… compelling case. But come on, secret aliens murdering people in San Diego?”

“What, as opposed to alien monsters on TV getting the shit kicked out of them by hockey players? As opposed to alien embassies orbiting the moon?”

“I know!” Ares exclaimed. A few startled gasps and glances from the other mourners moderated his volume. “I know. I agree. You’re preaching to the choir, compañero. But I have to answer to people, and even if they were persuaded, which they’re not, there’s this little thing called ‘Jurisdiction’ biting me in the culo."

“What about the FBI?”

“The feds?” Gabriel made a scornful noise through his nose. “The pendejo I spoke to said he’d put me through to Special Agent Mulder and then hung up. They’ve got enough to worry about without alien conspiracy theories. People didn’t stop murdering each other just because there’s a couple of alien space stations up there."

“Need a hand?”

“You’d go all the way to New Jersey?”

“If it got us to the bottom of this, I’d even go back into space.” Jenkins told him, firmly. “I want these fuckers to fry, Ares.”

The detective stared at the headstone for a long while, and then shook his head. “I’m not… You realise I can’t authorise that, right?Not officially. This is a police matter, I can’t bring in civilians to interrogate a witness.”

“That wouldn’t be by-the-book, huh?”

"Lo tienes."

“Does going by the book always work?”

“No. But going against it NEVER works, Jenkins, to hell with what cop shows and movie writers think.”

“So you won’t help me.”

“Can’t.” Ares corrected.

They stood in silence for a while. Most of the mourners paid their final respects and departed.

“Of course…” Jenkins mused. “Seeing as New Jersey is outside of your jurisdiction, if I were to go talk with this guy, it’s not like you could arrest me for it anyway.”

Ares half-laughed and half-huffed. “If having a conversation with some guy in New Jersey was illegal then I could arrest you right now for planning to commit an offense.” he said. "IF," he added, turning to look Jenkins right in the eye “having a conversation with some guy in New Jersey was illegal.”

They considered each other’s expressions for a moment, and then both men stuck out their hands to be shaken at the same time.

“I’ll let you know if I think of anything that could be useful to your investigation, Detective Ares.”

“I’d appreciate that, Mr. Jenkins. Buena suerte."

Civilian Trade Station 1039: “Infinity Awaits”

"Shipmaster Kttrvk,

"You have received your orders. As per your contract with the corporation, failure to follow your assigned route is punishable by demotion, confiscation of your ship and fines up to 5% of the value of the cargo per [day] of late delivery"

"-Ikktik, Deputy Shipping Executive"

Kttrvk knew at that exact moment that nobody in the corporation even bothered to read their mail.

He weighed up the possibility of refusing and then counter-suing the corporation for reckless endangerment of his and his family’s lives when they took action against him. A fair court would surely come down on his side.

But of course, Long Stars Shipping would never see the inside of a fair court in a case like this, would they? They owned the judges, they could afford the best lawyers, they lobbied for the laws that worked in their favour.

For long minutes he sat, thinking, while his mate Ikkzziki slumbered, rotund with what would be their fourth child.

There was only one possible course of action.

Alliance Embassy Station, Sol

“Good morning, Rylee.”

Rylee flinched. She knew that the voice she heard wasn’t exactly Niral so much as a computer simulation of what Niral’s voice might sound like if she was speaking English, cunningly conveyed to her ears by harmonic trickery in a way that completely overruled the original voice, but the simulation was totally consistent in giving Niral an identifiable voice.

“…Niral! Hey. Good morning.”

“A very good morning.” Niral’s ears were flattened sideways. The effect looked either mischievous or smug to Rylee. Her tall posture, shoulders thrown back and head held high, suggested the latter.

“Oh! You guys, uh…?”

“That we most certainly did.” The Gaoian purred. “The first of many I hope, before we’re certain I’m with cub.”

“That’s umm… Great. I’m happy for you.” Rylee found she couldn’t meet the Sister’s gaze. She was surprised when Niral issued a low keening sound and took her hands.

“Rylee, are you all right?”

“I made a complete ass of myself last night, didn’t I?”

“…A backside? Oh! Um… I don’t know, did you?”

“That’s usually what we call it when somebody makes someone else feel uncomfortable by confessing to being… interested in them. And all the rest. I’m sorry Niral, I was drunk, I wasn’t thinking straight and I ran off at the mouth."

Niral keened softly again and hugged her. Presumably she was hugging quite hard by Gaoian standards, but to Rylee the effect was of being gently hugged by an anorexic teenager - under all that fur, the Gaoian’s body was small, wiry, feather-light and frail. “I don’t think I understand this ‘drunk’ thing.” Niral told her. “But I wasn’t drunk last night, and I still say you’re my friend.”

“You’re not upset?”

“If I’m going to have alien friends, I need to be okay with them behaving in alien ways.” Niral replied, stroking Rylee’s hair. “I’m not upset.”

Rylee broke the hug very gently, and wiped away a grateful tear, pulling herself together. “Oh, I needed to hear that.” she smiled, then a thought struck her. “Shit, you didn’t tell Goruu what I said, did you?”

Niral tittered a Gaoian giggle. “We were too busy.” she teased. “But… no, I wouldn’t. Not if you don’t want him to know.”

“I don’t.” Rylee said firmly.

There was a moment of comfortable silence, faintly amused on Niral’s part. Then she looked up at the space-plane wing that Rylee had been sleeping under.

“So this is Pandora?"

“This is Pandora."

“Does the name mean anything special? The first Gaoian warp craft was named Tiritya, after the first Mother-Supreme, who united the females of all clans into one clan."

Rylee smiled. “Pandora was the first woman, according to Greek mythology.”

“The… how can there be a first woman? And what’s a Greek? One of your clans?”

“Yeah, sort of. Mythology means… kind of, fanciful stories, an entertaining way of getting points across using fiction. It doesn’t always have to be scientifically accurate. Besides, they didn’t really understand evolution by natural selection back in ancient Greece. It’s a very old story.”

“Oh. So, your first warp craft is named to honour the first female and not the first male?” The idea seemed to have Niral’s approval, and not for the first time Rylee was struck by the notion that Gaoian females were maybe a bit sexist.

“Well, she was more than just the first woman.” Rylee said, beginning to pack up her cot and stow it away in the ship’s small cargo compartment. “She was a curious soul who opened a box in which Zeus, the father of the gods, had sealed away all the evils and negativity of mankind. When they all flew away to plague humanity, the only thing that was left behind was hope, which she kept.”

She glanced at Niral. “It’s all supposed to be metaphorical.” she clarified.

“I guessed as much. But what was hope doing in a box full of evil things?”

“Hope can’t exist without evil.” Rylee said. She rubbed her hand fondly along the fuselage of the modern Pandora. “Just like up can’t exist without down, or how fast only exists relative to slow.”

“And I suppose your species is in a sort of box…” Niral mused.

“Exactly. I choose to believe that Pandora here is our promise that when the box is opened, we’ll be a force for hope and positivity in the galaxy, rather than a plague of evils."

Niral allowed the human a few seconds of distant misty-eyed happiness. “I’m sure you will be.” She said.

Cimbrean

“So, how much do you know about what’s been going on back home?”

Jennifer Delaney, mid-twenties, space-babe with a mouthful of the first chocolate she’d tasted in years, regretfully swallowed it.

“Not much.” She confessed. “The alien news only covered the big things: the Hunters attacked Vancouver?” when Powell nodded, she continued. “Then there’s a fecking big force-field, we have warp travel now… That’s about it. I know that our ambassador to the Dominion is called Doctor Anees Hussein because he wrote me a letter, and he hinted that we’re maybe wanting to play both sides to our advantage, but other than that, I’m pretty well in the dark.”

“Right. Well, it’s mostly business as usual.” Powell said. “The usual political gobshites, same sports, same celebrity gossip, same bullshit in the Middle East. The Russians are still fookin’ crazy, the Chinese still have a stick up their arses, the Yanks are still fookin’ reckless and there’s still a Marvel movie three times a year like fookin’ clockwork.”

“Nothing’s changed at all?”

“I didn’t say that. NASA and the European Space Agency merged to form the North Atlantic Space Agency, the Chinese, Russians and Japanese are all stepping up their space programs, as are the South Americans and the Australians, and there’s even the Pan-Africa Space Organisation now. I think they’re mostly looking at trying to build space elevators, which is easier at the equator or something.”

He sniffed. “A whole bunch of private companies are pushing into space as fast as they can, too. BAE, Virgin, Mitsubishi, Shenyang, Red Bull…”

"Red Bull?!"

“Dont ask. And the cutting edge military technology is… fook me sideways, if you were cleared to know about half of it, you’d shit your new pants.”

“How much AM I cleared to know about?”

“Right, so we took a look at the way business is done out here and promptly said “fook that”, right? Giant fookin’ spaceships with giant fookin’ guns and even gianter fookin’ armour plates pounding the living shite out of each other at spittin’ distance. They’ve got missiles and mines nowadays - apparently they picked that trick up off one of us - but their whole approach is pretty bloody direct.”

“Oh. Really? One of, um, us?”

“Yep. Like to get my hands on that wanker, whoever he was. Give him a lesson in keeping his fookin’ mouth shut.” Powell’s tone was light, but he had a dangerous look in his eye that reminded her a bit of Adrian, though not in a happy way.

Jen suddenly became very grateful for the practice she’d had in the art of lying, and bobbled her head in a way that could mean anything but didn’t really meaning anything specific. Powell apparently took it agreeably.

“Anyway,” he continued “the ships we’re putting up - or, at least, the Lockheed ones that NATO are buying - are built around not that. Long-range weaponry, evasive maneuvers, fookloads of electronic warfare. We use capacitors full of reserve power rather than big reactors, so our ships are small and agile little buggers, built to hit and fade, rip things a new one in the opening seconds, then jump out, recharge, come back and do it again."

“Our weapons stack up to theirs?” Jen asked. That part was genuine news. She’d known for some time that most weapons that she might find pointed at her were nowhere near as deadly as their equivalent on Earth, but she had always assumed that with thousands of years of science behind them, spaceship guns would be far in advance of anything humanity had yet invented.

“In theory.” Powell said, clearly unhappy about not being able to give a more emphatically positive answer. “Because all their stuff’s based around railguns and plasma cannons, our own weapons, which are neither of those things, should be something they don’t know how to handle. Their shields are tuned to stop slow-firing high-energy projectiles traveling at like, one percent of lightspeed, and the armour’s designed for heat dissipation: it’s all ceramic tiles, fragile as balls.”

“So, if we fire a howitzer at them or something?” Jen asked him, latching on to the first “big gun” word she could think of.

“I see what you’re thinking, but nah. It’d just explode against the shields: too slow-firing. But in theory, if we just chuck a load of lower-energy projectiles at them it’ll overwhelm the shields and smash the armour. See?”

“I’ll… have to take your word on all of that.”

Powell smiled. “I take it you’re not a military hardware geek?

“Not really.”

“Well, I am, and the Lockheed TS-101 gives me a hell of a chubby.”

“Charming.” she deadpanned, trying to give the impression that there were more important matters on her mind than the state of his junk. It seemed to work, because Powell cleared his throat and his smile faded.

“Right. Sorry.” He scratched his upper lip with his thumb, lips pursed in thought. “Anyway, back on topic. There’s… a lot of legal questions about Cimbrean here.”

“Like what?” Jen asked, surprised. She had assumed that all of those questions would have been sorted out long before the soldiers came here.

Powell ticked each question off on his fingers as he asked them. “Is this a colony of any one nation? And if so, which one? Or is it its own nation? in which case are you going to have a constitution, are you going to be a democracy? What’s your immigration policy? What are you going to export and import? What’s the customs policy on things like, say, seeds and foodstuffs, because from what I’m told our native Terran species would go through this lot -” he waved an arm, expansively indicating the ecosystem of an entire planet “-like vindaloo through a short grandma.”

“There are questions about you, too.” he added, looking her in the eye. “You were given the job because you were here and because we heard you’d built something, but seeing as what you apparently built is a battlefield, do you even want it any more? Do you want to go home to Earth? Because the next time Kirk swings by here he’ll be able to send you back, no problem. Do you want to stay on as governor, or hand the job off to somebody else?”

Jen’s brow creased as she considered this. “I hadn’t even thought of any of those questions." she confessed. “How much of being a colonial governor would be like that? Desk work, lawmaking, thinking about all the fiddly little details and all that?” She asked.

“Fookin’ near all of it, I’d imagine.” Powell said.

“Then I want to be replaced as soon as possible.” Jen said, firmly. There was no way she could go back to a job that even looked and smelled faintly like I. T., not after her experiences out here.

“You sure? Could be a nice desk. Big salary. Power, fame and influence?”

For once, Old Jen and New Jen were in total agreement. “I’d rather just be a space-babe.” She demurred, her voice completely full of resolve.

Powell nodded approvingly. “Good for you.”

Brick, New Jersey.

Ravi Singh’s apartment wasn’t hard to find. In a building of cheap wooden doors, his was the solid, expensive one with three locks and a camera above it.

The response to Kevin’s knock wasn’t a querying “who’s there?” or a friendly “Hello?”, but a moment of wary silence, and then:

“Who are you?”

Kevin held his tattoo up towards the camera. “Not one of them." he asserted.

He waited patiently throughout the long consideration that followed, and then the undoing of three locks.

After a few more thumps, there was a buzz, and the door opened… revealing another door.

“Uhmmm…”

“Step inside.” Singh instructed, his voice muffled through the door.

Kevin paused, shrugged, then complied. The space between the two doors contained nothing except an almost absonant magnetic lock with a keypad, and a shelf on which a metal detector wand was charging.

“Run the wand over your scalp.” Singh insisted.

Kevin Jenkins found that the limits of his patience were being approached, but he sighed and did so, completely bemused as to what he could be looking for.

Singh wasn’t satisfied until the wand had gone over his whole cranium twice, and over the bald patch where his translation implant had once been a good three times, before finally there was a beep from the magnetic lock and the inner door swung open.

Kevin wasn’t sure what he expected from the interior of the apartment. After the extravagant security and clear paranoia, he had expected a gust of stench and a study in dingy squalor inhabited by an emaciated neurotic disaster of a man. In fact, the apartment was clean and tidy, decorated in light and airy cream and a warm maroon.

Ravi Singh himself was similarly clean, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, but the bags under his eyes were exactly in keeping with the suspicious reception: he had the face and body language of a man for whom sleep had long since ceased to be anything other than sporadic, shallow and brief.

He welcomed Kevin into his apartment with a surprisingly warm handshake given his apparent exhaustion and the paranoia of the previous few minutes, then glanced out of the front door, and shut and locked both.

“So. What’s your name, mister not-one-of-them?” he asked. “Can I offer you a cup of tea?”

“I’m more of a coffee man, myself…” Kevin said.

“Of course. How do you take it?”

“Uh, black, strong and sweet, please. And my name’s Kevin, Kevin Jenkins.”

“Oh?” Singh arched an eyebrow as he busied himself with a steel and glass cafetiere. “Well, this is an honour. The Butterfly himself. Please, sit down."

Kevin did so, conscious that his street clothes were a good deal shabbier than the apparent recluse’s black leather couch. “Butterfly?”

“You’ve surely heard the term ‘Butterfly effect’? From chaos theory. The notion of a little insect in a field in France flapping his wings and several months later that little eddy has grown into quite the mighty storm and poof! There goes half of Bangladesh." Singh smiled grimly, a distinctive closed-lipped smile that Kevin recognised immediately as that of a fellow abductee. You learned to keep your teeth hidden out there.

“I never bought that story.” he retorted. “Sounds too much like the fantasy of a little man wanting to believe he’s important.”

“Does it? But you’re a living example of the principle in action.” Singh said, pouring hot water into the cafetiere. “I truly believe that had you not been aboard the Outlook on Forever that day, we would still be here. The sky would still be open, but we would still be generations away from exploring it."

“How d’you figure?”

“Without Kevin Jenkins, that would have just been another successful Hunter raid. Without Kevin Jenkins, the galaxy’s media would not have taken an interest in our species. Without that, there would have been no uptick in abductions. No uptick in abductions would mean no warp trail to lead a stray Hunter vessel to Vancouver in search of prey. It’s all quite narrative, really.”

He depressed the cafetiere’s filter and poured a cup of steaming black Blue Mountain.

“If that’s how it works, then what about the patrol officer who kicked me off the Churthuarg station for vagrancy?" Jenkins asked. “Or the Corti who abducted me, or my ex-wife or my lawyer or… you know what, I didn’t come here for this conversation.”

“No, you came here about the Hierarchy.” Singh handed over the coffee in an elegant glass cup. The aroma was perfection itself. “I told the last person who came knocking in no uncertain terms that her death was really only a matter of time once she started probing into this, but she said she accepted that.” He sipped the coffee. “I hope she was truthful.”

“She was prepared for it. Terri left her notes for us to find.”

“You knew her?” Singh asked.

“She and I were… we fucked.”

“Ah!” Singh looked sympathetic. “It must have been a complicated relationship, if all you’ll reveal is what you did, rather than how you felt. And so blunt, too. You must be in a lot of pain.”

“Dude!” Kevin threw his head back in frustration, then leaned forward. “I don’t want psychoanalyzing. I came here for information.”

“That information will kill you.”

“If they’re what I suspect they are, then knocking on your door probably killed me.” Kevin said. “So how about you drop the guru half-speak and get on with the movie.”

Singh smiled again, this time allowing his teeth to show - a genuine, human expression of delight. “Certainly.” he said.

Civilian Trade Station 1039: “Infinity Awaits”

“That’s a dangerous itinerary your ship has logged, cousin.”

Shipmaster Kttrvk spun at being addressed so familiarly by a stranger.

The stranger was a Rrrrtktktkp’ch, standing nonchalantly next to an advertising hoarding on the station’s docking ring, which was helpfully mocking the shipmaster by advertising life insurance. There was something slightly familiar about the Cousin’s facial structure, but the markings were totally unknown to him.

“My itinerary? I don’t have an itinerary. Excuse me.” He turned to leave

“1047-6533-26 972.” the Cousin said, reeling off Kttrvk’s assigned route and stopping the Shipmaster in his tracks. He looked faintly smug when Kttrvk turned to give him a disbelieving stare.

“How did you…?”

“I have my ways.” the stranger said, making it clear that those ways were not for Kttrvk to know. “That’s a dangerous route right now. A lot of Hunter strikes.”

“Well, your information is obsolete.” Kttrvk said, firmly. “I’m not doing that run.”

“Long Stars Shipping seem to think you are.”

“Long Stars Shipping can choke on their feed!” Kttrvk exclaimed, then moderated his tone when a few nearby beings glanced at him. “I will NOT orphan my children nor put them in harm’s way just because the corporation is too greedy to listen to my pleas.”

“You’ll go to debtor’s prison…”

“An acceptable price for the lives of my offspring, my mate and our unborn.” Kttrvk snapped.

He was not expecting the expression of admiration and approval that spread across the Cousin’s face. “Good for you!” he exclaimed. “But I am here to offer you a third way.”

“And what way would that be?" Kttrvk challenged him.

The stranger looked around and stepped in a little closer. “I represent an organisation that wants to trial some new military hardware.” he said. “Simulations and training runs are all well and good, but there is no substitute for the real thing, and the Hunter problem in this area will only claim more lives unless something is done… but they’re too canny to come out and fight just anything. We need… well, we need to entice them into attacking something."

“That something being my freighter.”

“You’re quick.” the Cousin said. From a Rrrrrtktktkp’ch to a Vzk’tk like himself, that was a serious compliment.

“My freighter with my family on board.” Kttrvk pointed out.

“My organisation would not offer to use you this way unless we were completely certain of your safety under our care, I promise you that.”

“And your organisation is…?” Kttrvk pressed.

The Cousin paused. “Let’s just say that this technology would impress and awe even the humans." he said, and made a small conspiratorial gesture that only Kttrvk could see.

Enlightenment dawned. Of COURSE! Everybody knew that it was only a matter of time before the humans got loose from their prison, it only made sense that there would be… organisations… looking to prepare to meet the deathworlders in battle and win.

And anything which could give the humans a pause would surely go through Hunters effortlessly.

Still, Kttrvk would not have become a merchant shipmaster without some guile and caution.

“All of your assurances aside, I would still be risking everything dear to me.” he said.

“If you are pressing for payment, then to assuage your fears and buy your lifelong silence about this experiment, I am authorised to release fifty Dominion Development Credits."

Fifty DDCs.

It was a vast sum. Enough to upgrade the Nkvcqtz with Corti engines that would hopefully give her the speed to not only slip past Hunter ambushes, but also to trade in high-value perishables. Sensibly invested on the other hand, it would provide a very healthy retirement plan for Kttrvk and Ikkzziki, as well as upmarket gene-resequencing for their children to enhance their intellect and buy them prospects that Kttrvk had never had.

But a career merchant’s instincts swung into place. Never accept the first offer.

“A hundred.” He counter-proposed. “We are risking a horrible death here.”

“Seventy. I understand your concerns, but you are in the safest possible hands. And yours is not the only ship that Long Stars is ordering on this suicidal run. You will merely be the first to leave.”

“…Done.”

Cimbrean

“Well, even if you pass the baton first chance you get, you’re still technically in charge of every civilian aspect of this colony for the time being.” Powell said. He snatched a clipboard from where it was hanging on a tent post and consulted it.

“Let’s see… There’s a list of stuff they’d like you to do. Nothing major: name the colonial capitol, identify any existing human citizens, living or dead… we’ve got real-time two-way communications with Earth but a pretty small data budget of what we can send and receive: more like telegraph than anything. To be honest, there’s not much for you to do. Anything on this list you DO do will be taken under advisement by the civilian experts and contractors we bring in once this place is secure and the camp’s up and running smoothly.”

“That doesn’t sound like it’ll take a whole month.” Jen said.

“We’ve got a lot of tech to deploy, a perimeter to establish, scouting to do, maybe an FOB or two to set up..”

“FOB?”

“Forward Operating Base. Somewhere small and camouflaged where if this place is bombed off the map… again… there’ll be a couple of guys left behind to report mission failure.”

“Sounds boring.” Jen complained.

“We’ll find stuff for you to do.” Powell promised. “And I mean USEFUL stuff, now.”

“Thanks.”

“So? Any ideas as to the colonial capitol’s name?”

“A… few. I’ll sleep on that one.”

“Fair enough. Okay… have you met any other humans out here? Besides Darragh Houston, that is. Actually, where IS he?” Powell grabbed a different clipboard and leafed through it.

“Feck knows. The last I saw of him he was on his way back here, but I did some looking around while I was filling up my bath, and didn’t find any sign of him.”

“Okay, he’s an unknown then…” Powell stopped looking at the page he’d turned to. “Any others?”

“Is that a list of abductees?”

“Every unaccounted-for human outside of Sol, in theory. Don’t ask me how they got it, I don’t know.”

“Okay, uh… a few. Adr… um, actually let’s start with, uh, Margarita. I can’t remember her surname, she was a dwarf, Spanish.”

“Was?”

“Yeah. She um… well, the honest truth is that an invisible death robot cut her open.”

“Invis…? O…kay. I think you’re going to need to brief us on those things.”

“I will.” Jen promised.

“Right.” Powell ticked something on his list. “Here she is. Deceased. At least we’ll be able to let her family know. Any others?”

“Cameron White. Very deceased and good fucking riddance.”

Powell blinked, then flicked through his list. “Oh. Shit. Fookin’ hell, what were they thinking stealing a crazy wanker like that?” he ticked. “Good fookin’ riddance, aye.”

“And uh… Adrian Saunders. Australian Defence Force….” she forced herself not to give in to the temptation to look down, whisper and cry. “…Deceased.”

“Wow. You’ve had a bad time of it…” Powell sighed, flipping through,his document, then ticked off against, presumably, Adrian’s name. “Deceased. Guess his wife and kid will have closure at least…”

Planet 16 Cyg B b, 16 Cygni trinary system.
Hunter supply station

+<contempt; disgust; snap> Report!+

The Omega did so, cowering appropriately as the Beta of the Brood-that-Flays swaggered into the information node chamber.

+<Statement> There have been no transports of the specified size along the prey-route within the last Diurnal, Beta.+

+<Disdain; command> Continue to monitor the traffic. The prey are stupid and stubborn, there will be a few more before their patrols arrive. And they are yet to send our tribute.+

+<Statement> I comply, Beta.+

Any brood above a certain size soon developed a small population of Omegas: They were an unfortunate necessity, as some tasks were too menial to insult the Deltas with, but too important to be entrusted to a meat-slave. This one, however, was especially vile in the eyes of its Brood.

It would have been a source of immense surprise to every other species in the galaxy that the concept of “creepy” was one that Hunters understood. But in fact, it was a central one to their mindset: the Hunters were the Predators, and everything else was the Prey. Predators behaved a certain way, and Prey behaved a certain way. Any deviation from this natural order was creepy.

Hence the Great Hunt. The worm programs that the Hunters had long ago infiltrated into the Prey’s data networks, that lurked invisible and silent, watching, collating and reconnoitering everything that the Prey chattered about, had gathered a great wealth of their speculations on the motive behind the Great Hunt: Opinion was mostly split into two camps, the first being that the Hunters were afraid of the human race, and the other being that the Hunters were jealous.

Both theories were equally amusing, by the peculiar standards of Hunter humour. The humans were a non-Hunter species that were Predators, and which was inspiring the Prey to behave in unPreylike ways. This was disruption of the natural order, a creepy intrusion into the Way Things Were Meant To Be. Their eradication was as obviously necessary as, for example, the correction of a fatal structural flaw that would cause a building to collapse under its own weight.

This particular Omega was only one wrong step away from demanding such action, itself. Its existence was barely tolerated, barely tolerable; it lived forever on a delicate knife-edge where its meat might be harvested and fed to the breeding pools should it deviate further from acceptable Hunter normalcy.

This was not because it behaved in an unHunterlike way. Quite the contrary, it did so very carefully, unfailingly and meticulously. What made it creepy was that it did not appear to do so naturally. Its thought-broadcasts were simple statements, queries, respectful requests. There was never any emotional content. When it joined the hunt-cry, it did so almost dutifully and by rote, rather than with real enthusiasm.

Thus, even the other Omegas, which usually banded together out of bottom-of- the-heap solidarity, tended to view this particular one as an opportunity to claw back an anemic parody of the authority that other Hunters held over them. The fact that it didn’t seem to mind - displayed no discernible emotions at all, whether resentment, resignation, complacency or contentment with its lot

• only added to the bottom-feeder’s abnormality. It simply followed instructions, diligently, swiftly, competently, and to the full extent of their spirit and intent, often even going above and beyond.

This hinted at the other aberration: The Strange One clearly had a sharp and calculating mind. It saw patterns with ease that other Hunters would overlook. On the few occasions where it had dared to venture an opinion, none of those opinions had yet been wrong. It grasped new tasks within moments, and performed them as well as an experienced expert after only a few days. For a creature so clearly talented to be apparently disinterested in its own stature or reputation was therefore wrong, strange, creepy.

The Beta bared its fangs at the Strange One and then threw itself into the throne traditionally occupied by the ranking Brood member present in the information chamber, pointedly ignoring the inferior specimen and instead stared out of the large gallery windows around the ceiling of the chamber, enjoying the view.

The fact that Hunters had any notion of beauty or aesthetics at all would have been similarly shocking to most of the prey-species. But in fact, the Hunters were in their twisted way highly spiritual and artistic beings. Most of their understanding of beauty was, perhaps predictably, a sanguine and violent one, revolving around the flavour of well-stressed meat, the patterns made by blood and organs and violent dismemberment, and the panic, fear and horror of the Prey.

Lurking underneath that, however, was an innate appreciation for the universe as a hierarchy of interconnecting parts, all in their place and tied by common threads. To the Hunters, the sense of How Things Should Be was a profound one. Predators fed on Prey, bound together by Nature. Alphas commanded and Omegas obeyed, bound by the common thread of the Brood. Moons orbited planets orbited stars, all subordinate to Gravity.

The planet known to humans as 16 Cyg B b was a particularly spectacular example of this last concept: a gas giant, two thirds again as massive as Jupiter, towing with it a coterie of moons, a vast garland ring and a shotgun blast of stray asteroids, captured comets and rocky dust, and it was into one of these asteroids that the Hunters had carved out their forward base, close enough to the spacelanes to easily intercept any choice prey that might use them, but far enough away to be a practical escape and hidden refuge. Bathed in the light of three suns, the view was stunning.

The Beta became aware that the Strange One was inspecting something on its screen with greater than usual scrutiny.

+<*impatience; tolerance; command> Report, Omega+

+<Statement> Beta, a Prey-ship has passed through our sensor cordon at abnormally high speed. <Observation> A ship that fast can only be powered by the grey-skinned Prey’s secret engines and a very large power source.+

+<Interest; Query> Can it be intercepted?+

+<Statement> It cannot, Beta. It simply attracted my attention: I apologise for intruding upon your time.+

The Beta grudgingly accepted the benighted creature’s apology. The day was just beginning to seem as if it would be a slow one without quarry, when the Strange One expressed the one emotion it had ever been known to show.

+<Satisfaction; statement> Beta, a message from the Prey. The Herd of the Long Stars have honoured their arrangement and are sacrificing a vessel as we stipulated. A bulk freighter, High One. Of a configuration likely to contain many long-necks and their young.+

The Beta allowed itself the luxury of a wide-mawed smile. While actually deigning to communicate with the prey was a task so wretched that even the Omegas were only required to stoop to it it because the meat-slaves could not be entrusted with the task, little “arrangements” with the so-called “corporations” that made the greatest use of the shipping lanes was a mutually beneficial arrangement: The Brood had neglected a rich hunting ground over the arrangement with the Long Stars herd, allowing the Prey to grow rich and fat off the easy pickings there.

The growth and prosperity of the Herd only served to fatten the meal and make the hunting that much better in the long-run. Proper cultivation of the meat was important, hence the willingness of the Broods to accept what might be alternatively interpreted as demeaning bribery, as if the Predators should be bought by the prey. Naturally, a high price was only appropriate. The meat itself was an excellent start, of course, but a bulk freighter was a large vessel that could be recycled into many Swarm-ships, and would hold younglings, ripe to become meat-slave breeding stock. The tribute was entirely acceptable.

+<Jubilation; Command> A fine quarry! Alert the Alpha: we hunt. Meat to the Maw!+

+<Statement> I comply, Beta. Meat to the Maw.+

The Beta snarled as it departed for its ship, mood somewhat spoiled by the Omega’s muted, unenthusiastic echo of a response. The Omega would receive only scraps from this prize for its lack of vigor.

Behind it, the Strange One ran an algorithm of its own programming and loaded it into the sensor console. The appearance of that abnormally fast ship was an anomaly, and in its experience, anomalies usually led to interesting data. Data that its true masters would undoubtedly appreciate.

Cimbrean

“Wife and kid?” Jen kept the question light, while in her head there were explosions and lightning bolts and screaming.

“Yep. Sandra Saunders nee Perry. Lives in Brisbane with her daughter Jessica."

“He never mentioned having a wife and kid.”

“Well, the sprog’s birthday is about seven months after his estimated date of abduction, so he probably didn’t know. As for the wife, well, wow. That might have something to do with these arrest warrants…” Powell said, looking at something that was clearly impressing him.

“Warrants?”

“Yyyep. Wanted for counts of Grievous Bodily Harm, Assault with Intent, theft of a motor vehicle, driving while intoxicated, dangerous driving, reckless endangerment of the public, arson, vandalism…” Powell turned a page. “…and littering.”

His attempt to maintain a deadpan expression at that last one failed, leaving the smile straining at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“He…” Jen paused mid outraged defense, and ran through her immediate reactions. “He didn’t. I knew Adrian, he wouldn’t… not to his wife!"

“Doesn’t say she was the victim." Powell pointed out.

“Well it must have been somebody who hurt her or, or… He definitely wouldn’t do something like that to somebody he loved." She protested aloud, mouth rushing off ahead of her thoughts.

Except to protect her. Old Jen reminded herself internally, flashing up the memory of Adrian’s inexorably strong arm clamped tight around her throat.

Her objections faltered. “…yeah. I guess that sounds like Adrian.” she admitted.

“Sounds like my kind of crazy bastard.” Powell said, admiringly. “You sure he’s dead?”

“He was unconscious, and they were venting the atmosphere, trying to kill us. If I’d tried to drag him to the escape pod, we’d have both died.” Jen asserted, though her old self hated to sound so… coldly practical. Again,though, there was that understanding, nonjudgmental look in Powell’s eye, and it occurred to her that maybe she had some things in common with the special forces captain that neither of them really wanted to have in common with anybody.

Powell looked up as somebody knocked on crate next to his office tent and stuck his head through the flap. “What’s up, Brewer?”

The man who had knocked jerked his head towards something. “Solar array’s about ready, captain.”

“Nice. Come on, Miss Delaney, you might like this.”

Jen followed him out of the tent. “You can call me Jen.” she said.

“I’ll do that, then.”

In the middle of the lawn, one of the trucks was parked next to an object about the size and shape of an oil drum. Jump leads trailed from the device and into the truck’s engine, and a couple of men were gathered round hooking up some extra equipment to it.

“So what’s this solar array?” she asked.

“You know solar panels?”

“Yeah.”

“Turns out force fields can do the same job. All you need is a little jump to get them started, and then they power themselves and give you a bit of surplus to spend on things like water heaters, computers and that.”

“Water heaters?”

“Aye. Should make your baths a bit easier in future.” Powell gave her a winning smile, apparently immune to the scowl that answered him. Jen wasn’t quite so confident as to be perfectly happy about her inadvertent exhibitionism, but the SBS Captain seemed to cheerfully give no fucks at all about trivial things like accidental public nudity.

They watched as the array was powered up, with a snap as something sparked inside the truck’s engine. A ghostly orange dome of energy sprawled overhead, then faded to almost invisibility as the system figured out how much power it needed to draw and settled itself into equilibrium.

“Right. Look, I’m sending a patrol out in a few minutes, why not go with? It’ll take your mind off things and besides: we could use somebody who knows the land, and you know it better than we do.”

“I’m not exactly a soldier…” Jen hesitated.

“Trust me, you won’t hold them back. Besides, I’m not too worried that there’s anything on this world that’d make you tagging along a bad idea. They’ll only be gone a few hours, just long enough to scout the area.”

“That sounds… good, actually.” Jen allowed. She had become so used to walking that it almost felt uncomfortable just sitting around. Her body practically ached to be moving.

“Thought it might.” Powell shouted at one of the nearby soldiers. “Oi! Legsy! Get Jen here a rifle and a sidearm and teach her how to use them, she’s on your patrol!”

He turned back to her. “You wait and see, by the time you’re back, you won’t recognise this place, and I’ll have your message from home ready for you to watch in private.”

Freighter Nkvcqtz

For all the Cousin’s reassurances, Shipmaster Kttrvk had not been so encouraged as to take the step of leaving station with his mate and children aboard. They had been left behind, staying at a hotel paid for several (months) in advance through the expenditure of just one of the twenty DDCs that the Cousin had agreed to pay in advance, with the other fifty to be delivered upon completion of the mission.

The ship felt empty without them, and he had never felt more alone and jittery. Neither had his crew, all of whom knew that staying on was an enormous risk, but the company’s hazard bonuses - and threats - were sufficient to have persuaded most to remain, though all showed serious signs of stress and fear.

It was almost a perverse release therefore to hear the warning chime from the navigation system before they hit the edge of the gravity spike and the ALV drive’s field collapsed, dumping them back to the world of the sub-luminal.

The sensors immediately identified four Swarm Craft, and large ones, each capable of holding upwards of twenty Hunters. Every crewman onboard, Kttrvk included, promptly grabbed and armed their pulse pistols.

This was not for the purposes of fighting off the Hunters, though it was to be hoped that they could take a few down before being overrun. The pistols were for themselves: if you could help it, you didn’t let the Hunters take you alive. Better to die instantly than to be slaughtered while still conscious.

They waited as the Swarm-ships closed around them and the largest of them settled in to its approach vector, lining up the fusion-ended boarding tube that would violate their hull and inject terrible death onto their decks.

He was beginning to fear just how terrible his mistake had been when the local space sensors alerted him to the arrival - via jump drive somehow, despite the apparent absence of any jump beacons in the area - of five ships of unknown type, configuration and origin.

"Edda Wing: Edda Actual - Weapons free. Til Valhall!!"

"OORAH!!"

+<Alarm; Alert> Beta! Unknown warships have appeared via displacement!+

The alert came at the worst possible time. The Alpha’s ship had just lined up and was extending its boarding proboscis to pierce the Prey’s hull. It was at its most vulnerable, its slowest, its shields lowered to get close to the prey.

Already it was moving, abandoning the force-dock maneuver and trying to gain distance enough to raise its shields and accelerate, but it was too late. Exactly what kind of weapon it was that tore the Alpha’s vessel apart was unclear, but the side evaporated in a cloud of pulverised armour and metal scraps, and air pressure did the rest, bursting the ship and practically ripping it in half. Thirty-four Hunters, including the Alpha itself, briefly broadcast their dismay and fear across the brood network before fading.

The Beta - now the new Alpha - hooked its neural implants directly into its ship’s controls and analysed the situation. There were five of them. The craft were of a strange size, somewhat larger than a fighter or shuttle, but smaller than the next largest conventional class of military vessel. And they were fast, apparently blessed with a generous ratio of thrust to mass.

They were also alarmingly difficult to get a target lock on. Active sensors seemed to slide off their hulls like water off a greasy metal plate, and the ships themselves were small and agile, a combination which made securing a solid fix on their exact location at any given time as much a matter of luck and guesswork as of letting the sensors work. All were clearly being flown by experienced and exceptional pilots - their transversal velocity was high and their movements were coordinated so that if one of the remaining Hunter ships maneuvered to minimise its vulnerability to one attacker, another would be perfectly placed to rake it as it turned.

+<Statement; concern> These are not the tactics of Prey…+

As if to confirm that sentiment, three of the craft converged on another of the remaining swarm-ships as it executed an ill-advised turn in response to a feint. The new Alpha paid close attention to the weaponry they used, probing the space around the attacking craft for signs of what manner of violence was being unleashed. It detected only the burnt by-products of explosive compounds, and a hail of high-speed flechettes.

With its shields up, the second Swarm-ship survived the assault, but was badly mauled, losing a thruster and the coilguns along its larboard flank before the aggressors had swept past, banking and accelerating, keeping their transversal high. The sustained G-forces involved in that maneuver must have been ferocious, and yet the ships showed no sign that their pilots were in distress. A dreadful suspicion started to settle in the Alpha’s mind.

+<Command; urgency> Meet aggression with aggression! We are not Prey! Form up and fight as Predators!+

The Swarm-craft fell in around their wounded comrade, and as one the pack turned, seeking a target. One of the attackers was isolated from its wing, its evasive options whittled down by shepherding volleys of coilgun fire, and there was a stab of triumph from the Alpha’s gunner as it fired a perfect solution that would surely obliterate the offending vessel, turning the tide.

The Alpha had to replay the sensor logs to determine what happened next. In the tiny fraction of an instant it took for the coilgun rounds to cross the intervening distance between muzzle and mark, their target displaced, blinking two hundred kilometers across the sphere of engagement and re-entering the fight unscathed.

Then the entire hostile wing imitated the move. Suddenly, all of the Swarm- ships were flying in the worst possible direction, and their guns were pointed completely the wrong way.

A storm of accurate firepower ablated the shielding around their sterns in seconds.

+<Panic; Command> Disengage! Flee! Fl-+

A 30mm depleted Uranium armor-piercing incendiary round penetrated through all of the ship’s comparatively flimsy internal bulkheads, disintegrating as it went. It arrived in the command deck as a dense knot of incandescent heavy metal that reduced the Alpha to a smear of liquified matter when it passed directly through the command chair before embedding itself in the forward wall. The explosive force of its arrival crushed the other five Hunters on the deck almost simultaneously.

Perforated by hundreds of similar rounds, the rear third of the ship decompressed spectacularly, evaporating into an intricate dancing halo of flashing metallic and ceramic shards, mixed here and there with the odd disembodied piece of Hunter. The handful that were unfortunate enough to survive in the forward compartments did not do so for long - power failed instantly, and with it went the emergency air-retaining forcefields.

From the moment Edda wing arrived on the field to the second the final Hunter ship lost power and fell apart, less than three minutes had elapsed. Not one of the TS-101s had expended even half of their capacitor reserves or ammunition.

Freighter Nkvcqtz

“What. Just. Happened?”

Kttrvk came back to reality. He had done nothing but stare dumbfounded at the swirling battle on the sensors throughout its brief but intense duration. He looked around at his crew, all of whom were wearing identical expressions of utter awe.

He gathered himself.

“We survived, that’s what. Get the FTL repaired and let’s be gone!”

Planet 16 Cyg B b, 16 Cygni trinary system
Hunter supply station

The Strange One considered the recording it had made, all of the sensor data it had intercepted from the destroyed swarm-ships.

That the aggressors were human vessels was obvious, and a fact which exonerated the Long Stars herd of treachery. Incomplete and all-but-useless as the data was, that much could be gleaned effortlessly. That it should forward the data to its true masters was equally obvious.

But what of its “fellow” Hunters? The information would be of precious little use to them. It contained no hint at all of how the ships had been able to jump across the sphere of engagement without the use of jump beacons, what kind of weaponry they used, nor how the pilots could possibly react swiftly enough to blink-jump out of harm’s way as that first one had. The Strange One knew enough about humans via its true masters to know that even their impressive reflexes were not so sharp as that.

Probably useless as the information might be, the Alpha-of-Alphas especially was dangerously intelligent. If the Hunters were somehow able to glean whatever secrets the humans had unlocked, they would become an even worse blight than they already were. The Hunters were useful, keeping the masses nervous and distracted, but should they gain too much and too quickly…

The decision was obvious. It ran another program, placing a call that it made only rarely, when certain it would not be caught. Right now, with the whole Brood in upheaval over the death of both Alpha and Beta, for the Strange One to continue calmly working at its terminal would be taken as just another symptom of its strangeness and the content of that work would be ignored.

+I have potentially valuable information on the Sol situation+

The reply was instant: +Ready to receive.+

The Strange One promptly transferred all of its files. There was a pause of some minutes, which it used to update its archived mind-state. Now was one of the few occasions it had been able to safely do so.

Eventually, the reply came:

+You have done well, Twenty. The Hierarchy can make use of this information.+

Cimbrean

“Legsy” turned out to be an enormous Welshman, who towered over Jen and seemed to take the whole world with irreverent good humour.

“Right! Ever handled a gun before?” He asked, fishing around in the back of a truck.

“Sort of.” Jen said.

“Whatcha mean?”

“We modified some of those shitty pulse guns to fire actual ammo. They were okay, but…”

“Awh, they’ll be nothing next to these bad boys!” Legsy said. “Say whatcha like about the fuckin’ Germans, those cunts know how to make a fuckin’ gun.”

“Pardon your French…” Jen muttered.

“Wha? Oh, right. Get used to it darling, I’m from Llanelli.”

He hauled something out of the truck’s bed. “Anyway, THIS” he held up a gun “is the HK G36C. Before I give it to you, d’you know the rules of firearm safety?”

Jen’s lessons with Adrian on a deathworld she had never learned the name of came back to her. “Always assume it’s loaded and ready to fire and the safety’s off.” she recalled. “Don’t point it at something unless you’re completely okay with that thing ending up dead or destroyed. Don’t have your trigger finger inside the guard unless you’re going to shoot. Be aware of what’s near and behind your target.”

Legsy handed her the gun.

“Safety, magazine eject, charging handle. Got that?“Jen repeated the identification, and he nodded, then pointed to something on the top of the gun. ” This here’s an OCOG - that’s Offworld Combat Operations Gunsight. Designed for use in different gravity, right? Aim it at that target down there…” Jen did so. “See how the chevrons tell you the range, and stay on target no matter where your head is? Okay, tuck it into your shoulder a bit more… right. You know how to hold one, anyway. Give it here.”

When Jen had done so, he demonstrated the correct way to load and charge it a few times before handing it back to her and watching as she repeated the motion. Satisfied, he handed her a magazine with a strip of coloured tape around it.

“Okay, this is a charged mag and that’s live ammunition. Fire off a few rounds at that target by there.” He said.

Jen looked at it. “How far is that?”

“Hundred meters, nice and easy.” Legsy said, happily. “That gun’s effective out to about eight hundred, but the furthest target we’ve got is six hundred meters, which would be that little one waaaay over there.” He pointed at a little speck hanging from a distant tree. “But we’re going to start nice and easy.”

Jen shrugged, turned, raised the gun, sighted, and fired. The recoil was surprisingly hefty compared to the repurposed pulse-guns she was used to and the first shot hit a bit high. She adjusted, and the rest of her shots formed a tight grouping smack in the middle of the target.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell!” Legsy said, clearly impressed. “Okay, recoil surprised you a bit there. Squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk it, and try to be breathin’ out when you fire. Go for that one over there with the orange stake next to it, that’s three hundred meters.”

Jen’s shots hit low. “Sights are off.” she observed.

“Or you’re just shit.” Legsy teased, grinning. “Nah, you’re right. That sight’s not been calibrated for Cimbrean’s gravity yet, you’ll need to adjust it. See that little dial on the side?”

Jen experimented with it, twisted it a bit, and saw how the chevrons moved and widened out a bit. She fired, hit a bit high, twisted the OCOG a little less, fired, hit smack in the middle, and something went click in her brain.

She grinned, aimed, and squeezed off all the remaining rounds in the magazine before laying the gun flat in front of her, pointing downrange.

“You missed.” Legsy said, examining the three hundred meter target through binoculars and sounding puzzled.

“Look at the six hundred meter target.” Jen told him. He frowned and raised his binoculars again, and Jen folded her arms and allowed a cocky smile to form as she watched the giant Welsh soldier’s jaw drop.

Brick, New Jersey

It really was very good coffee.

“Here on Earth, The Hierarchy would be just another conspiracy theory.” Singh told him, settling down into his recliner. “But they are very real. They have acted behind the scenes of galactic politics since the days when some of the older species were still around.”

“Still around?” Kevin echoed, questioning.

“Species come, species go.” Singh said. “You must have noticed that all of the civilizations out there are much of an age with us. A few thousand years older at most.”

“So…. what, species just go extinct eventually?”

“Eventually. Usually after tens of thousands of years as warp-capable civilizations. But in time, well… it’s not quite clear why. It’s the grand unanswered question of alien sociology. But yes, in time they all enter a terminal decline. Every race up there is living on borrowed time.”

“No exceptions?”

Singh issued a slim-lipped, grim smile and set his coffee down. “Just one. The Hunters. There are references to them in archaeological archives dating back to the days when humanity was still just a balder-than-average ape with unusual posture. Nobody quite knows HOW old they are. But the rest? Eventually, they crumble, their works decay, they withdraw to their homeworld, set up shop and just… dwindle. They stop breeding and… give up.”

He leaned forward. “Except for the deathworlders.”

Kevin’s brow creased. “…But we’re the only deathworlders, though. Aren’t we?”

“We are, yes, but we shouldn’t be. Let me tell you my story….”

Chapter 16
Chapter 13: “Tall Tales” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Author’s Note: This chapter was co-written alongside Rantarian and ties in with chapters 67-69 of “Salvage”. Reading that side of the story may help you make sense of things.

Brick, New Jersey, Earth

The name I was given at birth was not in fact Ravinder Singh.

You see… It often surprises me just how few Americans know that India is a nuclear power. We have our stockpiles of weapons, our enrichment program, our power plants…

Any nation which has a nuclear arsenal and is prepared for the possibility of nuclear war, inevitably needs to employ experts in the effects - both the immediate ones, and those that linger - of nuclear weaponry. That was me. I was, once, one of my home country’s foremost experts in just what the bomb does, to people and to places.

A curious vocation for a Buddhist, maybe, but I viewed my role as being that of peacekeeper, or maybe a guardian, keeping the doors of hell locked. Maybe if I could impress seriously enough just how terrible a thing these weapons are, make my nation’s leaders see that nothing good could ever come of their deployment, that awful force might be kept in check.

No matter. The point is, I am one of only a handful of people in the world who know in full the details of the Republic of India’s nuclear program. You can see why my abduction would have caused… alarm, among the Security and Intelligence Services, the military…

The fact that my eventual return to Earth landed me in the USA could only serve to compound that sense of alarm, hence my change of name and reclusiveness. You’ll forgive me if I don’t share my original identity - I doubt that India has forgotten me.

But you of course are not here for the story of why I am living in Brick, are you Mister Jenkins?

Three years and eight months AV
Cimbrean Colony, The Far Reaches

"…oh you should see her, she’s getting so BIG, and we were all so proud of her when she played Mary for the nativity last…"

Jennifer Delaney, mid-twenties space-babe, and feeling happy for the first time that she could remember to hear her mum’s logorrhea.

Tamzin Delaney had launched into her usual update on the lives of literally every person within a ten mile radius of their house almost without preamble, as if it was just another daily message on her daughter’s answerphone, rather than a prerecorded video letter to be sent into space after years of not even knowing if she was still alive or not.

It was… comforting, in its way. Normalcy among the weirdness. She hadn’t changed a bit.

Robert Delaney, on the other hand, had lost a huge amount of weight, and lost the last colour in his hair. He looked less amply jolly nowadays, and more… scholarly. It was quite a change, but Jen had to admit that the only other time she’d seen her old man look so good was in old pictures from the 80s.

He seemed content to sit quietly, left arm around his chatterbox wife’s shoulders, and just listen with a faint smile, but just as Tamzin was launching into the chapter about non-family members, he rolled his eyes and held up a tablet computer he’d been holding out of sight behind the couch. Written on it large enough for the camera to see were the words:

"What she’s trying to say is:"

He swiped down.

"I love you

and I miss you

and I pray every day that

you’re safe out there."

He smiled, chin wobbling, and swiped down one last time.

We both do.

By the time Jen’s eyes were dry again, most of her mum’s monologue was over, and she wound down with a few anecdotes about the daughter of somebody who had babysit Jen twenty years previously and of whom she had no memory, before glancing anxiously at somebody outside of the camera’s field of view.

“…Is that okay?”

“I’m sure she’ll love it.” the operator assured her. Robert grinned at him from behind his wife’s back.

“Well… Be safe, darling. I… Come home soon.”

The video ended.

"Want to go home?" Old Jen asked.

“No.”

She had been doing that more and more, lately. Talking to herself, carrying on a conversation between “Old Jen” - the I. T. cubicle mouse whose sole experience with men had consisted of a few awkward and ill-advised office fumbles - and “New Jen”, the competent, confident, slightly cold and battle- scarred Space-Babe. It had helped her get through months of isolation during the long walk, but the habit was ingrained now.

Perhaps even more alarmingly, Old Jen seemed to have a voice of her own now: a shy, querulous voice that longed for safety, for warmth and comfort, to go back to her own bed and maybe a cat and a goldfish and shove her head under her pillow and FORGET.

If she hadn’t been a genuinely nice person, Jen suspected she would have hated herself. As it was, she accepted the voice of her own timidity for what it really was - Her past. And her past was a story of fear, weakness, lethargy… Everything that kept a person back, kept them in a cubicle, kept them too afraid to talk to boys. Everybody had that voice: at least she knew when hers was talking.

Still… sometimes it was alright to let Old Jen cry, so long as she wiped away the tears and kept putting one foot in front of another.

There was some shouting outside, which meant that Kirk had probably arrived. It was only his imminent arrival - along with the influx of colonists from Earth, including Jen’s replacement - that had persuaded her to finally watch the video from her parents and read the messages from her friends and more distant relatives. After today, there would be no further opportunities.

She just wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She wasn’t going back to Earth, that much was certain. And she couldn’t stay here, even if her bath was here. And there was the awful question of keeping her head down and avoiding being noticed by the Great Hunt. But…

…She’d figure it out.

Starship ‘Sanctuary’, Cimbrean Local Space, the Far Reaches**

“I swear I don’t know why you upgraded this thing to be so comfortable when we spend hardly any time inside it.”

“It wasn’t originally supposed to be just two of us, Julian.”

“Right… still can’t believe the other twenty-three went back to Earth.”

“Oh, they’ll be back. I was wrong about something, way back when.”

“You’ll have to tell me later Kirk. Hurry up and get us landed: Long-range sensors are picking up an ALV drive signature, looks big enough to be a… frigate, or maybe even a cruiser. We want to be inside the colony’s camouflage field before they get close enough to spot us.”

“Just the one? A ship that big shouldn’t be out this far…”

“Shouldn’t? Maybe. Is? Yes. Get us down there.”

“Aye aye.”

Cimbrean Colony, The Far Reaches

“Fookin’ ’ell, they’re coming in pretty hard…”

The Sanctuary was hammering down at the core of a trail of plasma. Powell and all the rest ducked down against a sudden blast of air, and the whole colony shook as the ship extended its fields, pancaking the air below it into a hundred-meter tall cushion that shoved the fireball sideways, scything the top off some nearby trees.

"Jesus H. Tittyfuckin’ Christ!!" Legsy yelled, a sentiment echoed in assorted vulgarities from all across the camp.

Thrumming smugly, Sanctuary settled gently onto the landing field.

“The fook was that all about?” Powell demanded, as the ramp dropped and Kirk’s partner-in-crime, Julian, staggered out and sat down heavily.

“The camouflage field working?” he asked.

“Franklin! Camo the field!” Powell yelled at the SEAL whose job was to handle the colony’s forcefield.

“On it!”

The field shimmered, moving from optimal collection mode to a wide-effect digital camo that would, in theory, make the colony very difficult to see from orbit.

Julian stood up. “There’s a ship incoming.” he explained.

The trooper responsible for the colony’s sensor array - really just the feed from a number of stealthy micro-satellites in geosynchronous orbit - had already grabbed his gear before Powell could turn to shout him into action, and was busy checking it.

“Confirmed.” he called. “One warp signature, incoming at superluminal from outsystem… looks like they’re coming from Celzi space.”

Powell released a frustrated grunt. “Intel said the Alliance was stepping up anti-piracy ops in this sector. If it’s the fucking Russians…” he trailed off, not finishing the thought. If it was the Russians, then the whole Cimbrean operation might well be fucked. Moscow’s aligning itself with the Celzi had caused quite the political row back at home where most everybody favoured neutrality in the interstellar conflict. While the Alliance hadn’t been responsible for the Sol quarantine, their condemnation of the enclosure had smacked more of expedient propaganda than actual moral outrage.

“They’re slowing… sublight.” Baker added. “Active ping! We just got scanned.”

“Think they saw anything?”

“Field’s up, camo’s running… At that range, if our gear’s working as advertised, no they didn’t.”

“Good. If this is just a patrol, hopefully they’ll have a look and move on…”

Baker watched his screen for a good minute.

“They’re not.” He decided. “Looks like they’re pulling into low orbit, set to sweep directly over us in… ten mikes.”

“…shit. Okay, get the Skymaster ready.”

Jen glanced at the imposing device in the heart of the camp. The “Skymaster” was a repurposed M242 Bushmaster mounted on a complicated gyroscopic base and field emitter array that transformed it into an effective ground-to-orbit weapon. It had been one of the first things the platoon had set up after the forcefield had come online.

As she watched, it pivoted and swung skywards, aiming into the western sky.

“Nine mikes.” Baker warned. Powell nodded grimly. His face had that same cold, calculating look that Adrian had used to wear in moments of real danger.

“Prepare to active ping.” He ordered. “If we see any sign that they’re hostile, we shoot first and the questions can go fook themselves.”

Baker confirmed the order, then counted down: “Eight thirty.”

Jen cleared her throat. “You sure about this?” She asked.

“Sure as I’ll ever be. Baker? Active ping.”

The sensors specialist nodded, and tapped something on his equipment. He gritted his teeth at what he saw.

“Ah, shit, their grav-spike’s up." he reported

Powell spun and addressed the two men manning the Skymaster. “Gun team! Five rounds, ASX!”

“Five ASX, ready… lock!”

“Fire!”

The Skymaster thumped. Jen felt it in her chest as the weapon opened a force- field walled tube of vacuum in front of it, into which it fired a round which accelerated away on a warp pulse in a line of exotic blue radiation. The warp field would collapse scant millimeters from the target’s hull, delivering the round long before the Celzi cruiser could even register that it was under attack. In theory, if the cruiser’s shields were still down while its warp field dissipated, the rounds would strike its hull unimpeded, smashing through the fragile ceramic armour tiles and delivering shaped explosive charges directly to the superstructure.

If its shields were up… in theory the gun could overwhelm them with sustained fire, but during that time the cruiser might lower its spike and flee, blowing Cimbrean’s cover.

Baker’s report soothed that particular worry. “Target well hit and de- orbiting, but they’re still intact. Communications could still be up.”

Powell set his jaw. “Five more, fire for effect.”

“Five more… Fire!”

The gun slammed into life again, and Jen felt her heart jump in her chest as five more rounds in as many seconds vanished skywards, pulsing upwards in a streak of blue light.

Powell keyed his radio. “Kirk, get ready to hit orbit an’ fook off, if this all goes to shit we need it reported back to Earth. Jen, you’d best go with him.”

“…Right. Take care of this place, Powell.” Jen said, while Old Jen whimpered objections at her about not abandoning everyone.

“You didn’t even name this place!" Powell objected.

“Folctha.” Jen called as she ran. “It’s called Folctha!”

She jogged behind the slender alien as he cantered across the lawn and scrambled up the Sanctuary’s ramp. Julian had sprinted ahead and was already powering up the ship’s kinetics as the door closed.

“We good to go?” He asked.

Kirk shook his head, a slow gesture on his long-necked kind. “Not yet. That ship will see us if we take off right now, and its gravity spike is still up, they’ll get a good look at us if we run now. We need to wait until it’s below the horizon.”

“And then?”

“And then we go with plan B I suppose.”

“I hope that’s not the plan B I’m used to…” Old Jen muttered, sotto voce. Louder, she asked “What’s plan B?”

“We deploy the system defence field we stole from the Confederacy.” Julian told her.

“An expedient solution, but also a politically awkward one.” Kirk expanded. “It would damage Earth’s reputation and bargaining position. I was instructed that the survival of the colony is more valuable, but…”

“But the fewer pawns we sacrifice the better.” Julian finished.

Jen blinked “Somebody stole one of those things for us?”

“Julian did.” Kirk said, a revelation which caused her to re-examine Julian. After his stammering embarrassment at finding her in the bath, she’d pegged him as another Darragh and largely ignored him.

Stupid of me she realised, examining him with New Jen’s eye for danger. That earnest, cautious expression had done a good job of hiding the fact that he was fit, strong, and scarred, and clearly a survivor. It was only the slightly pathetic reaction he had to being in the presence of her - of a woman, she realised - that had made her dismiss him. Had he been standing with more confidence, she would have had no trouble imagining him stealing hardware like that.

At least it was a lesson learned harmlessly.

“What’s going on out there, anyway?” She asked, changing the subject.

Brick, New Jersey, Earth

Did you know, the Corti never dabbled in nuclear fission on anything more than an experimental basis? Three deaths and an event that came alarmingly close to being their own version of Pripyat later, and they abandoned the program and never spoke of it again. I found that interesting. Of course, that was before their eugenics program, and after their intellect had expanded and their compassion had shrivelled, they were well past the point of need to meddle with such comparatively crude science.

The Corti who abducted me - do you meditate? You should. I was taken while meditating and did not even notice until I opened my eyes again.

Their names were Hvek and Twanri. A mated couple, and as close as the Corti ever come to being head-over-heels in love. Nice enough people, if one overlooked their condescending habit of constantly attempting to impress upon the “lesser species” just how intellectually superior they were. I was not impressed - they had deliberately stolen me to tap me for expertise that they themselves lacked, after all.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Corti schoolchildren would regard the class on radioisotope decay as mundane and boring. But there’s a gulf of difference between academic understanding of what causes nuclear fission to happen, and direct experience and knowledge of what the effects are when it happens uncontrolled. For that, they turned to the human race.

We aren’t the only known species to have detonated these weapons, nor to have dabbled in nuclear fission with the safeties off. But we are by far the most intelligent of those races which did so. That’s probably why they spent so much time repeating their obvious mental advantages - insecurity.

They chose two of us - myself, and Mikhael, a Ukrainian gentleman who offered guided tours of the Chernobyl exclusion zone. And chose, it must be said, perfectly. You could not have asked for a better pair to give you a complete analysis on both the academic and practical consequences of the aftermath of a nuclear event. Which of course gave us something of a hint as to what we were there to do…

Adams had a secondary role besides manning the forcefield, namely communications, and he called out as something on his own gear beeped.

“They’re hailing.” he reported.

Powell frowned. “Can they escape now?”

Baker shook his head. “No way, that ship’s coming down hard.”

“Fook it. May as well hear the bastards’ last will and fookin’ testaments. Open the line.”

The voice that came through was clearly Australian and desperate.

"Attention arseholes! Please stop fucking shooting at us, we are NOT Alliance. I repeat, we are just a pack of poor fucking bastards in honest need of some god damned help."

There was a long, embarrassed pause among the soldiers. Then, Powell leaned forward, took hold of the microphone, and replied:

“Attention ship - Ceasing fire. You are to proceed as follows: Crouch down, tuck your head between your legs, and kiss your arses goodbye. Sorry.”

There was no response from the radio. The silence on the ground was, eventually, broken by Legsy. “Fucking helpful advice that, sir.” he commented. Several of the men released the laughs they’d been holding back.

“Shut the fook up and get the lads ready to abandon base if we have to.” Powell ordered. “Actually, fook that. Where’s it coming down?”

Baker scratched his head “She’s aiming for… that big lake to the east.”

The captain glanced at the sensors screen, then grabbed his field binoculars and turned to face westwards, raising them to his face.

Other heads turned to follow his aim. Some few seconds later, a cloud formation withered and died in the face of incredible heat as the Alliance cruiser wallowed through it.

The ship was coming in at a shallow angle from low in the western sky, wreathed in smoke and fire as its shields struggled to stay up and ward off the hammering force of atmosphere. As they watched, a flicker and failure robbed the ship of what might have been an engine or something, which peeled off and corkscrewed away toward the south.

“No way is that thing surviving the hit.” somebody opined.

“We’ll check it out anyway, there’s at least one human on board, so we need to ID the body if nowt else.” Powell replied. “Legsy, get the mules and one of the trucks started up, send half the lads out there.”

“Which truck, sir?”

“I don’t fookin’ care! The one with the broken mirror!”

He keyed his radio. “Oi, Kirk. Hold off on escaping for now. Looks like we’ve got a couple of hours to check and see if owt survived the crash, you may as well unload the colonists.”

There was a pause, and then the alien’s simulated voice replied with a single professional word: "Understood."

Seconds later, the Sanctuary emitted a dull thud that must have been its end of the Jump Array accepting an arrival. It was only the first of the ten that would deliver the first colonists and their equipment and effects to Cimbrean.

Ten minutes later, Powell was riding shotgun in one of the Mules as it bounced and skidded across fertile flood plains. The stream that ran through the palace grounds at Folctha met up with a larger river, which in turn flowed out to the inland sea, from which a column of white smoke provided a clear marker as to the final resting place of the downed cruiser.

The mules were half pickup truck, half quad bike, and quite capable of getting themselves out of damn near anything the terrain might snare them with or, in the worst case, being physically hauled out by some strong men. Their supply of the diesel the little vehicles ran on was limited, but the development plan included finding a local plant species to refine into a biofuel. Besides, if anybody had survived the splashdown, the platoon needed to have men on the shore waiting to collect sooner rather than later, and the only way to get down there fast enough was by vehicle.

They pulled themselves to a loam-spraying halt as the sky flashed brilliantly from the direction of the sea. Every man in the mules and the truck flung themselves overboard and hit the dirt, half expecting a lethal shockwave to rampage up the valley and toss the vehicles flying, the product of some kind of nuclear meltdown or similar cataclysm. What instead arrived, after too many tense heartbeats, was a great echoing thunder of detonation that went on too long and was too gentle at that range to have been anything so apocalyptic.

“The fuck just happened?” One of the SEALs asked, being the first to break the silence.

“Maybe it blew up?” Opined a Canadian SOR trooper.

“That’d put paid to any survivors then.” Powell said. “Better hope not, we’ve still got a human to bag and tag. Mount up, let’s get down there.”

Waves were still lapping the sands and pebbles when they halted on the beach, and not a moment too soon: a trio of what looked like cargo transports of some kind were hovering across the water, propelled by rowing of all things.

A dishevelled hulk of a man, all muscles, wild hair, wilder eyes and unkempt beard splashed into the surf and waded ashore. He raised his hands in response to the guns that immediately aimed at him, but smiled.

“G’day”. he said.

Folctha colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Powell’s decision to order Kirk to remain had paid off, allowing the first civilian contractors and colonists to traverse the jump array from Earth, Already a team of determined-looking men were setting off into the forest with electric chainsaws, bent on constructing a log cabin to serve as a bunkhouse, as a rather more solid and permanent alternative to the tents of the military camp.

Somehow, they had even managed to squeeze a tiny backhoe into the miniscule space available inside Sanctuary’s end of the array, which was busily going to work laying the foundations for the bunkhouse and projects that would follow.

Jen wondered where whichever government or governments were responsible for this whole plan had found civilians with the right skills who could be trusted with the secret and were willing to take the risk. There must have been months of planning behind this venture, at a bare minimum.

“Miss Jennifer Delaney, I presume?” the voice had an accent that was pure southern England, reminding her vaguely of red tunics, flags and old stone buildings. It belonged to a slim, earnest-looking man in his late middle age who extended a hand as they met.

“Just Jen.” she asserted herself. Formality could go wrestle a Vulza. She shook his hand though, prompted by Old Jen into remembering that preferring to be informal didn’t mean needing to be rude.

“Jen it is.” the newcomer agreed, amicably. “I’m Sir Jeremy Sandy CH, your replacement as governor here.”

“Oh thank goodness… That’s a weight off my shoulders.” Jen admitted. “I’ve not done much governoring, I’m afraid I’m not cut out for desk work.”

“No indeed, you look like you’d find it bloody stifling.” Sir Jeremy readily agreed. Jen found that she liked the man, despite the pomp and poshness in his accent. Even if he was just very good indeed at reading people and saying what they wanted to hear, it was still nice to be charmed after months or, hell, years with no company but Adrian, herself, aliens, and a platoon of terrifyingly intense special forces.

“I can’t help but notice you’re about as English as the Queen.” she said. “Is Cimbrean a British colony now, or…?”

“The King, nowadays.” Sir Jeremy revealed. “But yes, it is. There was a lot of legal wrangling and courtroom drama involved, but ultimately Britain successfully argued that because the colony’s founder and first governor is a British national, as is its first military commander…” he waved a hand, dismissively indicating what had surely been an extended and heated debate within the halls of power. “Of course, that argument was much easier to make considering the confidential nature of the project. The absolute requirement of secrecy around Cimbrean’s development stopped it from ballooning into the political row of the century.”

“That makes sense.” Jen considered.

“Well, it probably won’t remain British for so very long. The Chinese, Argentinians and Russians are all making uncomfortable noises about expansion and Imperialism. Who knows? It could become the fifth member of the Union, or an overseas territory, but I think it more likely that Cimbrean will - quietly, respectfully and by common consent - go independent once on her feet, and become a Commonwealth member."

“Assuming she survives.” Jen pointed out. “If the Great Hunt finds this place…”

“We have a contingency prepared.” Sir Jeremy assured her. “In fact, you’ll be pausing during your departure to deploy it.”

“Oh?”

“Kirk will explain. Let’s just say that the need for absolute secrecy is going to be resolved soon. Among other things, a leak is inevitable, so we need to go public with the project sooner rather than later.”

“So it can have a positive spin put on it?”

“As you say.” Sir Jeremy smiled. He looked around drawing a deep and contented breath. “Gosh… clean air.”

“Clean, yes, but it’s also a bit thin next to what you’re used to. Don’t exert yourself too hard at first or you’ll feel sick and shaky.”

“Yes, I remember the briefing. Still… It’s refreshing. I’ve spent months in offices in London and Toronto ahead of this assignment, finally being here is wonderful."

You’ll enjoy the night sky." Jen told him. “There’s no light pollution here, so you can see EVERYTHING.”

“I bought a telescope among my personal effects.” Sir Jeremy admitted. “I’ve always been something of an amateur astronomer. The chance to survey new stars and constellations was part of what convinced me to take this commission.”

“Well, we’ve got a couple of hours yet before the expedition gets back from investigating that crashed cruiser, so welcome to Folctha. I’ll give you the guided tour before we go.”

“Delighted!” Sir Jeremy exclaimed, and took her arm. It was an avuncular, unconsciously friendly gesture and Jen quite forgot to stiffen at the unexpected contact. “Folctha?” he asked.

Jen smiled. “There’s a story behind that….” she began.

The enormous human wasn’t quite aiming his weapon at Saunders, but then again Gyotin doubted that he needed to. The squad of humans on the beach were quite plainly the most dangerous thing he had ever laid eyes on, each one of them comfortably wearing a harness of thick armour plating covered in an drab blend of greens and soil tones that his eyes almost wanted to skip off and treat as part of the background, and a gun that the Gaoian doubted he would even be able to lift. All bar the big one with the biggest gun were intimidatingly anonymous, their faces covered in black masks, and with lenses of a brilliant orange over their eyes.

He flopped onto the beach, growling at the pain in what was almost certainly a fractured bone high in his chest, and was surprised when one of the humans lowered his weapon and dashed over to him, unslinging from his back a bag of what were clearly medical supplies.

It immediately became apparent that the human had no translator implant or technology on his person, but even in the curious cadences of an alien language, his tone of voice was reassuring and cheerfully optimistic as he drew a slim white cylinder from his pocket.

Gyotin was in too much pain to really be too worried about a language barrier anyway, and just gratefully rested his head on the sand, awaiting his treatment

It came as a large disappointment when, muttering quietly to himself, he human scribbled a rune or letter of some kind on a piece of paper with the marker, and pinned it to Gyotin’s overalls before leaving and checking on a .Kwmbwrw crewman same ways down the beach.

Gyotin was about to raise his voice in protest and demand to know whether the human felt that some curious ritual involving paper was going to mend a broken bone, when the man simply touched the Kwmbwrw on one shivering flank reassuringly, before checking on the next crewman without leaving a note or rune. This one received more attention, and an injection from a small, presumably disposable, needle of some substance or another. It seemed to work, as the fallen crew member’s pained noises rapidly subsided , to be replaced by an apparently gentle slumber.

Triage, Gyotin realised, as the medic dashed from crewman to crewman, assessing the injuries. Mostly he just repeated the action of labelling his patients, but here and there he administered an injection of some drug or another.

The unconscious human - Markovitz - was loaded onto a small ground vehicle which roared away in a spray of kicked-up sand. The mostly-sane one - Kaminski? - was likewise loaded onto a vehicle, but this one was also occupied by a human who had the body language of the one in charge. They were just close enough for Gyotin’s translator to decide it could hear the “Rush-in”’s half of the conversation: the other didn’t appear to have a translator of his own.

“Kaminski, Roman. Captain, Spetsnaz.”

The other human spoke. The language was a staccato one, short clipped consonants separated by long, broad vowel sounds, punctuated halfway through by what was unmistakably a “fucking”. Gyotin still hadn’t quite figured why humans referred to the act of copulation completely out of context so frequently, but he had come to recognise the word by sound.

“I understand. Our missions are at cross purposes: I had no idea the West had forces offworld.”

“<Gibberish?>" There was a questioning note at the end of that sentence.

“Of course. I surrender, captain.”

The two deathworlders gripped each other’s hands firmly, and the captain nodded, looking relieved. “<Babble. Nonsense?>"

“Thank you.” Kaminski glanced around, and then leaned closer to the other human and spoke confidentially, too quietly for Gyotin to overhear.

The captain frowned, then turned to the enormous human with the giant gun. “Leg-zee! <Jabber! Gobbledygook.>

The big one nodded sharply, and then marched forward, stuck the vast weapon into the small of Adrian’s back, and ordered something. “<Yammer> fucking <prattle>."

“Sure, mate. Whatever.” Saunders agreed, and started walking, placing his hands gently atop his head. Gyotin wasn’t sure if the easy relaxed swagger in his movements was a symptom of bravado or honest insanity.

He stopped paying attention when the human medic returned and extended a hand. Gyotin took it with his good hand and was hauled - gently and respectfully but with the inexorable force of a human’s incredible strength - to his feet, offering words which, while Gyotin couldn’t understand them, promised medical attention and a future which didn’t include imminent death.

<+maybe they AREN’T all completely crazy…+>

Brick, New Jersey, Earth.

Our first destination - after we had finally calmed Mikhael down and he had agreed not to reduce our abductors to a fine paste - was a class eleven world.

I wish I knew its location, or anything more about it than its classification, but it was a pleasant place. Clement warm weather, stunning scenery, gravity just a little lighter than Earth’s, atmospheric pressure just a little higher. I felt quite buoyant - Mikhael complained of the heat. Supposedly, the world was home to a host of terrifying plagues, but neither of us ever got so much as a sniffle. Incompatible with human biology, I suppose. Or maybe Earth’s plagues are just nastier still. Who knows?

Have you ever heard a Geiger counter in action? Many people are alarmed by how rapidly and often they click just in response to background radiation. That in itself really ought to be a clue as to how cruel a mother the Earth is, when you think about it. That the basic background level of radiation to which we are entirely accustomed seems excessive even to us when we first learn of it…?

…Well, this planet - I suspected that it would only be the first of many we visited, and so I named it "Prathama" - had a background radiation much lower than that of Earth. It was so low, in fact, that Mikhael and I both fretted that the counter was broken, and requested replacements. The replacements corroborated the original, and in hindsight, why WOULD an alien world have the same background radioactivity as Earth? It would hardly be an alien world if it was identical, would it?

We had been dropped on this world, and told to search the area. Given who we were and the equipment our “employer” had granted us, it wasn’t hard to put together that we were searching for fallout zones, but what wasn’t clear was why. Deathworlds, after all, are supposed to be uninhabited. Humanity, we are told, is a lone statistical anomaly, the one race to defy the odds.

If that were true, and if spacefaring sophonts avoid deathworlds out of sensible caution, then why would there be any kind of evidence of nuclear catarstrophe on the surface of such a world?

Folctha, Cimbrean

A cry of “They’re coming back!” echoed across the camp.

Sir Jeremy turned to his predecessor as Cimbrean’s colonial governor and extended a hand. “Best of luck, Jen.” he said.

“And you, Sir Jeremy.” she replied, shaking it. “Enjoy the paperwork.”

“You can call me Jeremy.” He allowed. “I’ll make sure to have the bath enclosed and hooked up to the hot water. You’ll always be welcome here.”

She smiled. “Thanks…” a quick check showed that the truck was picking its way down the hillside. They had only a few minutes until the survivors from the ship reached the camp, and neither Jen nor Kirk had any intention of being identified as having been present. “I’d better run.”

“Before you go…” Sir Jeremy rummaged in his pocket and produced a folded envelope. “This is from the Prime Minister. He would like you to do something more for Earth. I suspect you’ll find it more to your liking than 'governoring’."

“Oh?”

“You’ll have your own spaceship for a start. Read it as you go.”

“I’ll do that. See you when I see you, Jeremy.” They shook hands, and she ran, sure-footed across the palace rubble and across the open field up the Sanctuary’s ramp, which closed behind her.

"Just in time." Kirk said. "I was about to leave you."

Sanctuary’s engines heaved, and she popped up and was gone in a startlingly short space of time, inertial compensation making the whole exercise feel eerily detached from the way the ground retreated and curled at the edges in short order. Jen’s last glimpse of Folctha was when the camo field snapped on below them, obscuring the vehicles just before they entered the camp.

They paused when Cimbrean itself was nothing more than a distant crescent sliver of blue-white, so small that she could have covered it with a pinhead at arm’s length, and Sanctuary pulsed once as Kirk fired something into orbit around the star.

“What was that?” She asked.

"System defence field." Kirk said. "A little modified. The colonists brought it back from Scotch Creek with them."

“Oh… a whole system? Like the one round Earth?”

“Very similar.” Kirk agreed. “Except that we can turn this one off when we want to.”

Jen said nothing, and pulled the letter from her pocket.

She was halfway through re-reading it when Kirk interrupted her thoughts. “_Ready to go FTL.” he informed her. “_Where would you like to go?*”

“Irbzrk.”

“How’re they doing?”

The colony’s newly-arrived doctor was an American, Dr. Martin Adams, and had undergone intensive training in nonhuman anatomy and medicine as a precaution. He had, to put it mildly, been surprised as all hell to have to practice his skills the instant he arrived. He and Powell had met briefly during the preliminary phases of the colony operation, and he had the intense, competent air of somebody who threw themselves completely into their work.

“One of the vizkittiks died.” he reported. “Not much we could do for her. The rest, well… I’ve set their bones, cleaned and dressed their wounds and made them comfortable, but they just don’t heal as fast as we do. Some of them are going to be in here for a long while. Frankly it’s a good thing we all have those disease-suppression implants or they’d be in serious trouble already.”

“And the Spetsnaz?” Powell asked him.

“Kaminsky’s basically fine. I’ve got his arm plastered, and a big glass of water sorted out the last of that “pixie dust” stuff. There’s nothing I can do for the other guy though. I got an IV in him, but if or when he pulls through is out of my hands, captain. Frankly, he needs to go back to Earth.”

“His only ride just left, too… Alright. Keep me posted. For now I want a word with our POW.”

“He’s over there.” Dr. Adams jerked a thumb to a bed with the curtains drawn. “Knock yourself out.”

Kaminsky was sitting up in his cot, looking bored. The man standing guard over the prisoner was a valuable resource kept from doing something more constructive, Powell knew. Hopefully, Kaminsky would turn out to be cooperative and his warder could be returned to a useful assignment.

Russian was a language that still formed an important part of the modern British special-forces soldier’s curriculum, but he knew only a few key phrases. Still, it seemed only polite to use them. "Kак дела, captain?" he asked.

Kaminsky’s English wasn’t perfect and was heavily accented, but was a damn- sight better than Powell’s Russian. The translator implants he had received from the alliance were useless: Powell didn’t have a matching set for them to talk with. Still, he might come in handy as an interpreter for the alien prisoners.

“Better.” The Spetsnaz captain replied. “I could do with vodka though. Several vodkas.”

“You lost men on that ship?” Powell asked him,

"Da. Sorry: yes I did. To traps, ambushes, maybe to that fucking foam." Kaminsky indicated the dormant form of Markovitz, then to an empty cot opposite his own. “Sit down.” he invited.

Powell did so. “So, I want to strike a deal, mate.” he said.

Kaminsky looked interested. “What deal?”

“If I HAVE to, I’ll need to assign a guard to you at all times, and I’ve got fookin’ precious few men to waste on that duty. You can see how a Russian special forces trooper smack in the middle of my mission is a bit of a sticky wicket.”

“I see that.”

“So… do I have to?"

“What is your offer?” Kaminsky asked, carefully.

“Quid pro quo, mate. A little information, and I might be persuaded you’re going to behave yourself and I can put private Hodder there back to work.”

“Where I’m from, my interrogation would not be so pleasant.” Kaminsky joked.

“Been there, fookin’ done that.” Powell told him. “But I don’t see the need to start wi’ threats and pain when you and I can just come to an officer’s agreement, like.”

“I agree. It is better this way.” Kaminsky said. “But are you asking about the spaceship and how I came to be on it? Or about my Australian friend with the alien mutant juice?”

“Alien mutant juice.” Powell’s tone of voice was a flat repetition, but also a question.

“Just something he said, and my suspicions. I’ll tell first one story, then the other, yes?”

Powell acquiesced with a bobble of his head and a shrug. “Sounds fair.”

He listened. Kaminsky’s life had rapidly swung for the strange the second he had encountered the now-crashed cruiser, moving from a relative cakewalk to a desperate fight to survive. All things considered, that the man had escaped only with some mild poisoning and a broken ulna to show for it was impressive.

Whether out of soldierly efficiency, Russian brevity or simple terseness from being a slightly hesitant Anglophone, Roman’s account didn’t take long. They sat considering the implications for a while.

Finally, Powell stood up and shook the Spetsnaz officer’s hand. “I have your word you’ll behave?” he said.

“I would like to go home as soon as possible.” Kaminsky confessed. “I think betraying your trust would only delay that.”

“Good enough for me.” Powell said, then deployed some of his own meager Russian again. "Спасибо за информацию."

Kaminsky smiled. "Пожалуйста." he said. “Good luck with this Australian, he’s crazy.”

Brick, New Jersey, Earth.*

We had grown so accustomed to the sporadic background noise of our counter that when it ticked up to what was, by any human standard, merely a healthy background, we both became quite fretful and uncertain.

Our trepidation was not without good reason, it must be said - the difference between a perfectly safe exposure and rapid but unpleasant death could just be whatever it is that you’re standing behind at the moment. From that moment on, we moved carefully. We tested the water, kept some clean in a bottle to wash any fallout from our persons if we should be contaminated, paused every few hundred meters to probe the air, the soil and the plants for contaminants.

And we found them, oh yes. isotope concentrations in the soil, all from Uranium’s decay chain. Signs of heavy metal poisoning in the local wildlife, including one unfortunate predator that must have had a vast concentration in its equivalent to a liver, concentrated into it by its food chain.

It was lying, dying, by the side of the first sign of civilisation we had seen - a road.

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches

Adrian Saunders turned out to be huge. It HAD to be Saunders, even though Jen had been perfectly convinced he was dead. Even without knowing the first name, there were no other Australians with engineering experience and military training on the abductee list. The guy wasn’t tall - in fact, Powell had a good couple of inches on him - but he made up for it by plainly having the kind of physique that strongman competitors and bodybuilders beat themselves up in pursuing. It looked like working muscle, too, rather than pure steroidal bulk.

He let the man stew for a few minutes as he sorted out some paperwork, including a quick re-read of Saunders’ file. When he judged that his prisoner was about on the verge of starting to fidget, he looked up and gave him his well-practiced “I really don’t have time to deal with this shit so you’d damn well better impress me” look.

Contrary to the usual response, Saunders instead smirked and laughed slightly.

“I’m not findin’ this fookin’ funny!” Powell snapped, shutting the man up even if the response was more arrogantly sullen than alarmed. “Do you have any idea what kind of problems you’ve caused just by being here? If you are who I think you are, you’re doin’ a shite job being dead!"

“And if I am who you think I am, you should have a long fucking think before making it known." Saunders retorted, though why he felt that should be the case was a mystery from Powell’s perspective. “Where’s Jennifer Delaney?”

“You don’t ask questions,” Powell told him. “You answer them.”

This earned another insubordinate frown. Frankly, it was amazing the man had made any kind of a career in the military at all. His body language and defiant expression was more rebellious teenager than professional soldier. “You bastards just shot down my ship-” He began to protest.

Powell interrupted him, not in the mood to let the prisoner claim the initiative. “Captain Kaminski tells me it was a pirate vessel, and that you only boarded it once he’d taken control of it,” He said. “In fact, he’s told me a lot of interesting things about you.”

Saunders gave a dismissive shrug. “So I’m the one who stole it most recently. I’m still the guy who crash landed a starship on a planet and walked away, and that’s not even close to the most fucking terrifying thing I’ve done this week.”

Powell had once led a team which infiltrated a Jihadist compound specifically to stab one man and steal his notebook, then exfiltrated with the entire camp hunting for them. That had taken skill, courage and no small amount of daring. Surviving a water landing in a starship, especially a badly damaged one, smacked more of luck, and luck in his experience was not to be relied upon, nor boasted about. “Not fookin’ impressed, mate.” he said.

This dismissal seemed to score a hit because Saunders shifted forward angrily and raised his voice, apparently oblivious to the five guns that all snapped to aim directly at him, and the way Powell’s hand dropped his holstered sidearm. “I’ve just been on a merry jaunt through fucking hell" he snarled “and all I want is the answer to One. Goddamned. Question!"

Powell let the moment of tension play out, until Saunders calmed down a bit and sat back. The angry shouting approach hadn’t worked, forcing him into a more reciprocal, reasonable approach. “Please?” he asked eventually, settling down.

Powell kept his satisfaction from showing, and instead made a show of standing down in turn, as did his men. “Quid pro quo, then.” he said. “You answer my questions and I’ll answer what I can of yours. Something tells me neither of us is going to like the answers.”

“No fucking kidding?” Adrian asked. “Well, I haven’t liked much for as long as I can remember, so why the fuck should I start now? Where’s Jennifer Delaney?”

"First" Powell persisted, “Your name.” He gave it a moment, then when no answer seemed forthcoming, he decided to say it outright. “You are Adrian-”

The captive interrupted, jerking a thumb towards the soldiers. “You better trust these fuckers here implicitly if you’re going to finish that sentence. Or maybe we can just assume that whatever you were going to say is right?”

Powell gave him a cool stare. Of course he trusted them implicitly. This was a top secret mission, and the men under his command were the best of the best. Not a single one of them was a security liability.

Besides, whatever reasons the man felt he had for needing to keep his secret superhero identity - and Powell wasn’t about to rule out some kind of paranoid delusion - he hadn’t yet revealed what they might be. Powell wasn’t interested in playing “Interstellar Man of Mystery.”

“….Saunders." he finished. “As for Miss Delaney, you just missed her. She shipped out when we detected your mob comin’ in. ”

There was a long, bewildered pause, and then the Australian broke down and started laughing. It wasn’t a happy laugh - it was a black cynical one, the laugh of a man who’d just figured out that he was the butt of a sadistic sense of humour. “Of course… of course she did!” He exclaimed, somewhere between the laughing and the sobs. “Gone home I bet? No reason to wait for a dead man!”

"Jesus fookin’ Christ…"

Powell decided, as the Australian slowly pulled himself together, not to correct him on that point. Jen had clearly been holding a torch for this guy, but mental cases like this tended to be a danger to themselves and anybody nearby. Jen was too competent, capable and useful a resource to endanger like that.

“Kaminski wasn’t bloody kidding,” he declared. “Is the rest true? The infrared? The… muscles?”

Adrian nodded as he ran a rough hand through his beard and across his head. “Yep,” he said, voice still trembling, “but I wouldn’t fucking recommend it. How are the Russians doing? Quid pro quo, remember?”

True enough. “Kaminski’s recovered. We have no idea what’s wrong with Markovic outside of ‘Pixie Dust’. Something to do with the alien fire suppressant?”

“Apparently it sends you totally fucking mental before you go catatonic. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from it.” Saunders revealed. “I’d stay away from that shit if I were you.”

<+No shit.+> Powell thought, feeling that his intelligence was being insulted. Who did this idiot think he was dealing with? There wasn’t a soldier on Cimbrean who wasn’t veteran special forces, they didn’t need advice from a crazed resurrectee, they needed the facts, unbiased and plain. Shit like “Don’t breath in the toxic foam” went without saying.

He kept his cool by changing the subject. “You’re a wanted man on Earth, you know,” He told him, keeping his tone light and companionable. “By rights, we’re supposed to imprison you and keep you until we can send you back… but.”

He looked the Australian up and down. “I can smell the kind of shit you’re in, and I’m not going to put this colony and my mission at risk over a dropout who’s legally fookin’ dead." He said. “D’you know how long that paperwork takes? I don’t have the fookin’ time nor the inclination, so long as you promise to get the fook out of my hair and never come back. Spread the word there’s nowt but ruins on Cimbrean and I might even be persuaded to see if there’s owt useful you can be doin’ instead of stealin’ pirate ships and chasing after a girl who’s got her shit together way better than you do."

They stared at each other for a few moments, then Adrian unclenched his fists, sighed and nodded. “Looks like you’ve still got some broken down old ships. I can probably put a working one together given a bit of time, a week… two at most, and then I’ll be out of your hair.” he offered.

“Good,” said Powell. Anything to get the man away from the colony and back out in the wider galaxy where he could do less harm. “We’ll give you food, clothes and shelter… and a fookin’ shave if you want it, but you need to get out of here before you become a problem. And for the moment, Captain," he added, stressing Saunders’ former rank “you are going to give me a full debriefing.”

He listened as the disgrace seated opposite him relented and launched into a characteristically foul-mouthed summary of everything that had happened to him since his abduction.

What was clear was that Saunders was completely out of his gourd, and a danger both to himself and to everybody around him. He briefly entertained the thought of just shooting the dangerous prat then and there and giving him a grave somewhere in the Folctha palace grounds. It would certainly have been the most expedient solution, and when it came down to it the SBS had done a lot worse during their history for the sake of the mission than putting down a figurative rabid dog.

It wasn’t a choice between pragmatism and compassion so much as a choice between conflicting forms of pragmatism, really. In the end, letting him live won out. Getting the word spread that Cimbrean was uninhabited might just put paid to the rumours of a colonial effort that had lured Saunders here in the first place. Not to mention that having the man sighted a long way from here could only increase the colony’s security, next to the trail going cold on its way here. Besides, if he kept taking crazy risks then eventually his luck or tenacity would run out and that would be the end of it.

“The fookin’ dinosaurs built a spaceship." He said, flatly. It wasn’t a question so much as a simple statement of disbelief.

“Yep.” Saunders said it with his apparently trademark "I couldn’t give a fuck even if somebody else did all the heavy lifting" attitude, but also with the total assurance of somebody who knew what they were saying was absurd and yet sincerely believed it to be the truth.

“I asked for a fookin’ debriefing, not a flight of fancy.”

“Space dragons, fucking X-files grey aliens, blue giraffes, raccoon people, and, yep, the dinosaurs built a fucking spaceship. Not my fault the universe is totally fucking mental.” Saunders objected.

He sniffed, and added: “Fucking good spaceship, too.”

Powell sat back and considered as Saunders rambled on at length about saurian robotic terminators, stasis chambers, the trouble with blue fur, statues, collapsing buildings, missile-riding, Vulza-riding and how much he hated fire suppressant, black holes and Darragh Houston. The whole monologue was being recorded for transmission back to Earth. How much of it was true or even plausible wasn’t a matter he intended to waste much time and thought on, but he did notice that while Saunders mentioned something called the “Hierarchy” a couple of times, he didn’t elaborate on who - or what - said Hierarchy might be.

When it came up again, he finally had to interrupt. “Okay, that’s the third fookin’ time you’ve mentioned this ‘Hierarchy’. Who in the hell are they meant to be?" he demanded.

Saunders had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Long and short of it? They’re the Space Illuminati.”

“For fook’s sake!" Powell exploded to his feet, spun away from the desk and pinched the bridge of his nose as he stood facing the corner for a second, head bowed. “I have no idea why I don’t just assume you’re taking the piss.” he muttered.

“I know a few things… they’re beyond cutting-edge. They’ve got a fucking army. And they love robots. Oh, and they can copy their brains away.”

“Greeeaaat.” Powell muttered. He turned and considered things. “Bloody ’ell, Why in God’s name do I believe you, Saunders?”

“Don’t fucking ask me.” the Australian gave him a wild-eyed shrug. "I hardly believe all this shit. But you do have a crashed Hierarchy ship sitting offshore."

“Not like I can do owt with it.” Powell grumbled as he sat down again. Nobody on his team was even remotely qualified to handle, salvage or work with nonhuman technology. A critical mission oversight, in retrospect.

<+And here I thought this debriefing was going to make my job LESS fookin’ difficult.+> he mused.

Adrian shrugged. "You can’t." he said.

Powell, distracted by his own thoughts didn’t catch the inflection properly. “Can’t… what now?” he asked

"You can’t do anything with it. I probably can." Adrian repeated.

“…My lads and the SEALs could dive that wreck, no problem, but we wouldn’t know the warp engine from the shitter.” Powell said. “You sayin’ you would?”

“I rebuilt a dinosaur spaceship and killed a fleet of fucking arseholes with it.” Saunders boasted, looking as if he was regaining a degree of focus. There was a hint of the once-professional soldier in the way he spoke. “I’m not saying it’s recoverable but if it is…”

Powell considered, scratching his own facial hair. “…If it is, you might actually turn out to not be a complete fookin’ liability after all.” he acknowledged.

Saunders’ professionalism slipped again, and there was a certain manic glint in his eye that only reinforced Powell’s conviction that he belonged as far away from Cimbrean as possible if the colony was to succeed. ““I was going to take some hard fucking revenge on these fuckers anyway, so… you know, it’s no problem.” he said.

Powell weighed his options. Unstable though he was, Saunders was the only man to hand who had the knowledge and experience necessary to do anything with the crashed “Hierarchy” ship before the salt water completely ruined it. And if they were as dangerous as he suggested, then his mission demanded at least sweeping the thing for tracking devices, beacons or other potential mission- compromisers, not to mention intelligence of a long-term threat.

“…Fine.” he relented. “You get to dive that wreck. You find any intel we can use and turn it over,and I might even drop the whole “never come back” thing. Now, I’m still kickin’ you off this planet because I need trouble like you a long way from my mission, but if you can prove you’re not a complete cock- up and turn up owt that’s useful - and rip out and destroy anything that might lead this Hierarchy here… Well, there’s the deal."

“Honestly I doubt it even has what I want.” Adrian confessed. “But I’ll be sure to look. What about after I’ve left? You got a phone number?”

“Next best thing.” Powell said. “You know Star Trek?”

“Yeah. My old man had an obsession.”

“Good, then you should remember this. There’s an… agent we use. He handles courier work, messages and odd jobs for us. He’s got an interstellar datanet dropbox, if you have a message for us, send it there and he’ll pass it on. The address is November-Charlie-Charlie one-seven-zero-one. Got that?”

“Got it.” Saunders nodded, the soldier showing again for a second, in the attentive way he gave his undivided attention to the important information.

“You know how to stay secure online?”

“I have a guy who can crack cyber security like an egg.” Adrian reassured him.

“You trust him?”

“We’ve seen a lot of shit together, so you know how it is. I know he’s not Hierarchy.”

That would have been good enough for Powell had the Australian been talking about a fellow human, but only one name in the story he had just told fit the description.

“You don’t mean this “Askit” bloke, do you? I thought you said he was Corti?”

Trusting a Corti with valuable information was, as far as the analysts back on Earth had been concerned, about the same thing as trying to carry boiling oil in a colander. The only way it could end was you’d get burned. You only told them secrets if you WANTED those secrets to fall into enemy hands.

“He is,” Adrian acknowledge “And I’ve almost never wanted to kill him.”

“…Whatever.” Powell sighed. “I guess trustin’ you with this means trusting whoever you trust in turn. Just don’t send in the clear, and use a codename. “Kirk”, “Enterprise” and “Federation” are already taken. Got that?"

Adrian considered, and then an impish grin parted his beard. “Reckon I might go with Captain Scarlet. Looks like I’m breaking the theme.”

“If playing the fookin’ special snowflake is what floats your cock, sure. Whatever.” Powell told him. “Got anything more to add before I let you bugger off and start building your pet starship?”

“Just one thing.” Adrian replied, shifting forward in his seat. “I’m about to start waging my own personal fucking war on an enemy I can’t even imagine. If you’ve got a wish list for souvenirs just let me know.”

He wasn’t engaging his brain or else that list should have been obvious, but then again Powell knew the value of repeating things in case something had been overlooked. “Anything that proves they exist and aren’t just your imagination." He said, extending his fingers to list the items he could think of. “Bleeding-edge technology. Alien hard drives, journals, logbooks, computers, that kind of thing. A working cloaking device, or at least one that’s not too badly broken. Maps, encryption keys… intel, basically.”

“You need a cloaking device?” Saunders asked, sounding faintly incredulous. He waved his arm vaguely towards the tent wall, indicating the unseen crashed starships outside. “You’ve got a half dozen wrecked Hunter ships lying all over the place.”

“Bloody lovely.” Powell agreed. “Now if you can point out which bit of the fookin’ things is the cloaking device, I might consider it a tick in the “not a complete waste of space” column."

Saunders scowled “Your confidence is fucking overwhelming.” he grumbled. “I’ll put it on the list of shit I have to do.”

“Saunders:” Powell warned “As far as I’m concerned. the one thing that makes you worth the oxygen you’re breathing is that you’re the only bastard on this planet right now who knows a spaceship’s arse from its elbow."

He looked Adrian dead in the slightly crazed eye. “Remember that, aye?”

The intimidation tactics didn’t seem to work: Saunders seemed to take it more as a joke than as a reminder of just how tenuous his position was, and grinned. “I’ll remember.” he promised.

“Right.”

Powell nodded upwards towards the door, dismissing the man. “Fook off.”

Brick, New Jersey, Earth.

Not that it was easy to tell: The concrete - it was made of hexagonal slabs of poured concrete, rather than asphalt - had been breached by trees, and the forest that violated the hard-top was just as dense along the road’s length as in the good soil to either side of it. It must have been… oh, a hundred years or more since it had been last maintained. Had we not stopped to examine the dying creature, we might have just stepped over the concrete road surface, dismissing it as a rock formation.

But once you saw the hard straight lines of the carriageway’s edge, and saw the material for what it was, other details made themselves known. The way that little clump of tangled thorny vegetation over THERE had a suspicious hint of rusty metal chassis, and the way that the creepers and vines over THERE seemed to have grown down from some kind of scaffold. That sort of thing. Everything was so green and alive that it all but completely obscured those fingerprints of an industrial civilisation.

There are only so many ways to build a car, I suppose. And only so many ways to reliably make it move. Only so many ways to build an internal combustion engine. All fancy and artistry aside, engineering is the art of effecting an efficient solution to a problem, and air resistance is much the same everywhere in the galaxy, as too are the demands of being able to readily carry a reliable and efficient fuel source.

The point is… there they were. Cars. Road signs. clear and visible signs that, once upon a time, Prathama had been home to a civilisation every bit as vibrant and technologically proficient as our own was in the latter half of the 20th century.

A civilisation that was, it seemed, utterly dead.

Cimbrean Date Point: 3Y 8M 1W 3D AV

Lance Corporal Danny Michael watched the Australian shave with the kind of pleasure only possible for a man who’d gone without for a good long while, and the transition between wild-haired spaceman and barely-tanned skinhead was a quick once he got to it. The man, Captain Adrian Saunders of the ADF, was judged by Captain Powell to be of a particularly unstable variety, and so Michael and Marine Paul Richard - his good mate and current off-sider - had been assigned to watch over him in case he tried anything too manic.

Such as fuckin’ well killing everyone.

“You’ve got no fucking idea how good this feels,” Saunders told them, assuming a great many things in the process. Michael had once been taken captive by Islamists who hadn’t recognised him for a soldier, and had paid the price months later when he’d been able to get himself and the other surviving prisoners free and clear of their shitty little compound. It was amazing how thick hair could grow on a man in the hot desert sun, and shaving it off had felt like coming home.

Michael just shared a knowing glance with Richard; they knew each others’ stories and there wasn’t any need for words in front of a crazy bastard like Saunders. That fucker could think whatever he wanted for all Michael cared.

Saunders turned out to be a little more balanced than Powell had feared; there hadn’t been any outbursts of violence that would have required them to put him down like a mad dog, even if doing so would have allowed them to move into other, far more interesting duties. Most of what Saunders seemed to do was to focus on tearing all the alien shit out of smashed up alien ships, and moving it over to the one that was the least fucked up. He’d started work on repairs once he’d amassed a small mountain of technological garbage, and had spent the next few days turning large holes in the ship’s hull into equally large patches.

Even once he’d completed the work to his own satisfaction, the ship didn’t look anything like spaceworthy. If anything it looked exactly like it’d crashed a second time, and was waiting for someone to come and put it out of its fucking misery. Saunders seemed happy with it, however, and commenced his work on the inside with an enthusiasm Michael recognised as a man doing what he was made for. That was another thing Captain Powell had said to watch for: Saunders knew his way around alien technology, and that gave him the kind of dangerous edge that needed an eye kept on it; you could do a lot with a sharp knife, but if you didn’t watch it you’d cut your fucking finger off and then where would you be?

Nine days into their watch - Michael was thankful that they’d only pulled day duty on the bastard - Adrian Saunders was eating a breakfast of branflakes and fruit, sitting amongst a morass of cabling, panels, and all sorts of technological doodads that Michael could have told you sweet fuck all about. Powell walked in, took one look at the huge fuckin’ mess, and shot an angry look at Saunders. “Day nine, and this thing is a complete fookin’ mess!"

Unlike most men, military or otherwise, Saunders was entirely unintimidated by Captain Powell. If anything, he seemed to regard the concept of other people intimidating him as something of a joke, which Michael took as much of an affront that Powell himself did. “It’s a whole shitload better than it was when I started,” he said, although it didn’t look it from the unused junk that was laying everywhere. “And you’ll remember I said a week or two. I haven’t broken any promises yet."

Insubordinate as usual, but Powell had taken to ignoring it. Had it been Michael in his place, he doubted he would have been quite so forgiving. “I’m told you’re still relyin’ on our generator to power this piece of shite," Powell noted, still looking all kinds of pissed off. “Will this fookin’ thing even get into space?”

“Not without its own generators,” Saunders admitted, taking a big bite out of his fruit and chomping away happily on its crisp flesh. Michael wondered if he did that on purpose in some attempt to further infuriate everybody around him. “Don’t worry, I’ve got something in mind.”

The assurance didn’t make Powell any happier, and if anything his glare grew even darker. “You fookin’ well better, mate, because I’ve got people asking who the arsehole working on the ship is. It’s not lost on everybody that you’ve turned up alongside a bunch of prisoners, and you’re the only one walking around happy as can be. They’re wondering why that is!”

A fair question to Michael’s mind, he’d heard the talk amongst people in his time off and he and Richard both had gotten asked questions about it. Telling the colonists it was secret under ‘operational security’ had worn out its usefulness over the last couple of days, and now there were all sorts of fuckin’ rumours going around.

Saunders took his time and finished the piece of fruit with obvious relish before continuing, although it didn’t seem like he was being so much wilfully annoying as just crazy as fuck. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m planning on testing the kinetics tomorrow, and if all goes to plan I’m headed out to sea the day after. These boys of yours like water?”

Michael experienced the sort of sinking feeling most often attributed to submarinal activities and just being goddamned unlucky, and he could see that this little expedition was most likely going to involve both.

“They go where you go, so long as it’s on this planet,” Powell replied, effectively repeating what he’d said when he’d first assigned Michael and Richard to their duty. “That includes out to sea.”

“They’ll need some wet gear,” Adrian unnecessarily informed them with far more fuckin’ amusement than Michael cared to see. “You might be able to get by just using some vacuum suits. The Russians had some they might use.”

“I’ll see it’s done,” Powell replied curtly. “That all?”

Saunders hesitated in his response, and turned to check on one of the boxes of components he’d been separating from the others and had actually been taking notes on. He slid it across the floor with an extended leg, pushing it over towards Powell. “I got you a present,” he said. “Now you can be like Kevin Bacon.”

Powell looked into the box, apparently enjoying the same lack of comprehension about the fuckin’ psycho’s babbling that Michael and Richard experienced on a constant basis. “What the fook has Kevin Bacon got to do with fookin’ anything?"

Saunders had the temerity to sigh, as though he’d expected something more of them. “Hollow man. That’s the cloaking system I promised you.”

Irbzrk Orbital Shipyard

“I’d have preferred to leave you somewhere further away.” Kirk said. “The more we can do to minimize the rumours of Cimbrean’s continued existence, the better. And from what you’ve told me, the people on this station might know you.”

“I’m counting on it.” Jen replied, watching with apparent interest as Sanctuary slipped into the station’s tug field and was pulled in to moor - Julian knew that Kirk preferred a mooring to an enclosed landing bay. What it lacked in ease of access to the station’s facilities, it more than made up for in rapid departures.

Julian frowned. “Counting on it? I thought you were going to lay low.” he asked.

“Oh, I am. These people have had bad experiences with humans in the past though, so if we rock up and I start flinging around these… Dominion credits of yours, they’ll have me a ship built tomorrow.”

“Won’t they recognise you?” Julian asked. “I mean, if nothing else that red hair’s pretty distinctive.”

“Easily solved.” Jen said. She rummaged in the pack of gear she had persuaded Powell to give her, and produced a razor and shaving foam. Julian frowned, confused and a little shocked.

“What do you need those for?” He asked.

“Right now? Shaving my head.”

“But…”

“The nice thing about hair is that it grows back.” Jen interrupted him. “Whole heads don’t, and that’s what I stand to lose if the Hierarchy figures out that I’m still around.”

She found her scissors, and trotted towards the bathroom. “See you in a minute.”

About thirty minutes later, she returned, towelling off her head. She looked… skinnier, Julian decided. Even though he knew full well that removing her mane of red hair had done nothing to her waist or those firm dancer’s muscles, somehow the exposed line of her neck and scalp contrived to make her look taller and thinner, as if she had been stretched out. She made eye contact with him and he looked away, embarrassed. He hadn’t forgotten that she was the first - and to date only - woman he had met since his abduction, nor what she looked like naked. He mentally growled an order at himself to get it together. Kirk was good company, but if Julian had his way, their next trip to Earth would involve a visit to… Nevada, or Amsterdam, or Australia maybe. Somewhere he could rediscover that kind of human touch.

He briefly entertained the option of just coming out and suggesting it, but the same common sense that had seen him through seven Nightmare summers flagged that one as an immediate bad idea. Even if Jen didn’t react angrily, she definitely wouldn’t react positively, either, and he needed to salvage something resembling a professional working relationship with her.

She fished a green hat out of her bag. It looked like it was designed for cold weather, judging from the earflaps, the fuzzy insulated lining and the pocket on the cheeks which hinted at some kind of a mask to protect the face from wind chill. For now, she just tucked it onto her head with the flaps up.

“Is there anything else you need before you go?” Kirk asked her.

“No.” Jen said. She shook their hands, gripping Kirk’s cybernetic delicately, though he’d had it reinforced to cope with human grip strength. Then she was gone, out through the airlock and onto the station.

Kirk was already halfway to the command chair before Julian remembered to follow him.

“Next?” he asked. Kirk checked the inbox, then compared the codes within to the book he kept under the chair.

“Earth.” He said, mildly surprised.

“No shit?!” Julian exclaimed, delighted. “I get to go home?”

“Well… yes. If you want.” Kirk said. His simulated tone suggested very strongly that he’d rather keep Julian around, and Julian could see why - they seemed to have clicked well, Kirk providing the streetwise knowledge, political insight and galactic general-knowledge, not to mention his fairly substantial intellect, balanced nicely by Julian’s instincts, hard-won skills and sheer physicality.

“Sorry man.” He apologised. “It’s just been… years, you know? Do I get a vacation? I’ll want to catch up with family and… sort things out, you know.”

“And get laid.” Kirk translated, reminding Julian that he was dealing with a passionate student of human nature and a keen judge of people. Kirk knew the foibles both of humanity and of individual humans, probably better than they knew themselves.

He blushed. “That obvious, huh?”

“You’ve not been able to focus properly around Jen ever since we found her in the bathtub, and that was a month ago.” Kirk pointed out. “Yes, you’ll get shore leave, and an expenses account. My gift to you for all the Christmases you missed.”

“What will you be doing?” Julian asked.

“Planning the next phase in our mission.”

“You won’t be taking some leave yourself?”

“On Earth?” Kirk asked. “I can’t. Don’t get me wrong, I would dearly love to visit your great cities, tour your natural wonders and experience your culture first-hand. But a whole leave break spent inside the hazardous excursion suit would be torture.” he shrugged, an expansive four-armed gesture on his kind. “Besides, I love my work.” he added.

He disengaged the mooring clamps, pushed gently away from the shipyards with the gas thrusters, and then hit the wormhole drive. The instant it made contact with its counterpart in Sol, a crease in spacetime enfolded them, and they were gone.

Date Point: 3Y 8M 1W 5D AV

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada, Earth

“So what’s up, Kevin?”

“Intel, Martin. Important intel.”

“This to do with your friend?”

“You’d better listen to what I recorded…”

Folctha colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches.

“Alright, girl…” Saunders said to the ship, patting the console in front of him, “now we’re going to see some real cool shit.”

Michael wasn’t sure about that, or about much of anything else right now. Neither he nor Richard felt comfortable flying around on this haphazard mess generously labelled a starship, and even less so given the fuckin’ nutter who was in charge. The huge fuckin’ spaceship ahead of them had been more like the real thing, even if it was half-trashed and mostly sunken beneath the waves, but they hid the impressed expressions well.

Saunders had taken his ship around it, surveying the damage and looking for a half-decent entry point. There was hardly much of a consistent hull remaining, with huge holes decorating the whole thing, and entire sections were missing, but they soon found the top of a gap that Saunders deemed as sufficient for purpose.

Gravity shifted in a similar way to the feeling of an elevator in descent, and pushed them downwards into the cerulean depths. From here the fantastic wreckage took on a moodier, haunted appearance, and in spite of his certainty that there was nothing to be found aboard more dangerous than himself, Michael swallowed. “But this is a spaceship," he found himself saying, “not a fuckin’ submarine…”

Saunders shot them a knowing smile. “Spot probably can’t go as deep as a sub, but she can probably get us where we need to go."

Michael ignored the fact that the madman was naming his spaceship and focused on the important issue. “Probably?” he asked, not liking that sort of uncertainty. He might have been prepared for danger, and even death, when coming to an alien world, but he’d really prefer it if his death didn’t involve drowning in a patched together starship that was slowly sinking into an alien ocean.

Richard was less willing to overlook the eccentricity. " ‘ang on a moment, did you just call this fookin’ thing 'Spot’?" he demanded.

Saunders shrugged, looking back towards his console to hopefully focus on whatever crazy shit he was about to do next. Not that Michael wanted the fuckin’ maniac to do crazy shit, it just seemed like sort of a given at this point, and he’d rather the requisite amount of attention be paid to make it a success. “Just looks sort of like a fucking huge dog head…” he explained, although Michael didn’t see how, “in a certain light.”

At least Richard didn’t press the point on that, waiting quietly next to Michael with only a small amount of nervous fidgeting. Saunders was focused for several more moments before he turned to glance over at them. “Opening the airlock outer door,” he warned them, illustrating that he wasn’t a complete fuckin’ idiot.

There was a brief sound of machinery working near the airlock, but nothing that followed it. That, it seemed, was enough to please Saunders. “Kinetic bubble holding.”

Michael shared a glance with Richard, waiting for everything to turn to shit. When it didn’t, Saunders turned to face them properly, lifting up his own helmet in preparation, and grinning at them like the psychotic madman he was. “I’d put my fucking helmet on now if I were you. I’m about to open the airlock inner door, and I’m not what you might call entirely confident we won’t all drown.”

They only hesitated for a moment before taking the advice. Now they were underwater, and in his hands, and they had to hope like hell that he knew what he was doing. Not fuckin’ reassuring. As it turned out they were worried for nothing, because the inner door opened to reveal a shimmering wall of water at the edge of the ship.

Saunders rose from his seat, stepped over to it and ran a hand through the water. “Gentlemen,” he said, holding up a dripping hand, “I give you the sea!”

Michael and Richard shared another worried glance, it was never good when the man you needed to keep you alive started making jokes at inappropriate times. Richard was unimpressed enough to tell the fucker what he thought, gesturing to his alien spacesuit as he did so. “You’re fookin’ mad if you reckon we’re going out there in these!”

Michael agreed with him though. “This is a space suit, mate," he said. “See a lot of fuckin’ space out dere? How d’you think we’re supposed to swim in dese?”

That just got more crazy from Saunders. “Oh,” he said, waggling his eyebrows, “I wasn’t going to swim."

At that he collected three stripped down alien hover devices, demonstrating his own for their benefit. He activated it, letting it pull him away, and dived into the ocean with mad laughter. Richard swore, repeatedly, and Michael was quick to join him. They grabbed their respective devices, repeating the demonstrated action, and let them drag them forward into the water beyond.

Michael hit the man with all of his might when they caught him at the entrance of the crashed ship, and was happy to hear the wind leave the stupid arsehole in spite of the water resistance. “Next time you do somethin’ like that it’s a knife,” he warned angrily. “What’s so fuckin’ useful down ’ere that you needed to come back?”

Saunders coughed, putting a hand to his side protectively. “Starship reactor,” he said, “it was still live after we landed…”

“Then why are all the fookin’ lights out?” Richard demanded, raising a very good point, though Michael figured it may be possible that being immersed in an ocean hadn’t helped.

“I blew them up last time I was here,” Saunders admitted with an unwarranted casual shrug.

Michael stared at the man, and Richard shook his head in disgust. “You’re just about the worst fookin’ thing a man could put on a spaceship…”

Saunders only shrugged again, apparently fully recovered from his injury, then turned and set off down a burned out corridor lit only by the small red power lights on their makeshift personal propulsion units.

Not a problem, Michael thought, remembering that he’d been in places a lot more fucked up than this burned out alien wreck. Admittedly those had usually been better lit, and never underwater, but they had been full of arseholes with guns so he had that in his favour… probably.

He looked warily at the dark shapes looming in the debris filled environment, jutting out from beyond any place their meagre light could reach. He shook his head and made quick to follow the madman. At some point the day had to improve.

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada, Earth

The story was identical on Dvitiya, Trtiya, Caturtha, Pamcama and Sastha. We visited six worlds and found the same tragedy waiting for us every time. Six civilisations, all cut down in their prime. Most, their cities were flat fields, identifiable as having once been cities only by the eroded glass and corroded rebar that littered what was otherwise a verdant field.

On one, Mikhael and I had to flee for our lives back onto the Corti research ship when the biohazard alarms screamed at us. The buildings were still, to some degree, standing. Hvek later commented that the virus we brought back with us was about on par with the Spanish Flu in terms of virulence and deadliness. Given that the world on which we encountered it was a class ten, I can only assume that it killed… everyone.

Can you imagine, Mr. Jenkins, what those poor people must have felt? What the very last of their kind must have been thinking as he coughed his last bloody breath onto his pillow, having survived to watch everyone he loved and his whole world be torn apart by a disease that must have struck them like the wrath of an Asura?

I have nightmares.

Our tour lasted three years. We visited twelve more worlds. I ceased to name them after encountering that disease. But I did the mathematics.

According to conventional wisdom, sapience cannot, and does not, arise on deathworlds. And yet here I had eighteen planets that revealed that common knowledge as being utterly wrong. Statistically, deathworld species should be in the majority.

We are not unique, in short, in evolving here in such a deadly cradle. But we do seem to be unique in surviving the invention of the intercontinental ballistic missile.

The starship reactor had been a relatively unimpressive thing. Michael had been expecting something like out of Star Trek, but what he got was a big white box, about the size of a small truck, covered in small red and blue indicator lights. As it was the only thing lit in the room he didn’t need Saunders to tell him what it was, but the madman’s burst of happy laughter confirmed it.

Richard looked over at Michael and shook his head worriedly. “How are we supposed to move this fookin’ thing?” he demanded. “It’s the size of a fookin’ lorry!”

Saunders kept working, and soon the majority of the indicator lights shut down. “We don’t need the containment unit,” he explained. “I’ve already got like five of the fucking things.”

Michael guessed that wasn’t the same thing as having a functional reactor, a suspicion proven a moment later as the madman drew a two foot white cylinder from the unit; it was covered in a constant outpouring of bubbles from its entire surface, and Saunders passed it over to him without explanation. “Hang onto that for me, mate. I’ve got another four to pull out.”

Richard took the second in hand, inspecting it more closely. “How come you need all these fookin’ things when your ship is a bloody tiny thing compared to this?”

Saunders removed a third as he answered. “Because unlike the aliens,” he explained with unusual lucidity, “I believe in having some fucking redundancy. Four redundancies in this case.”

“Wait, you only need one of these?” Richard asked, looking between the alien technology and Saunders. “Won’t this be putting too much power through everything?”

That was a good point, but Saunders didn’t seem concerned. “Yeah, but I already took care of that,” he assured them. “Five times the power, five times the glory.”

That was less than reassuring, but what was Michael going to do? Saunders was dangerous, but he was also their only way out of a crashed alien starship, and back to base. He pulled the last of them free, setting them aside before wandering over to a small, completely sealed unit that he opened with a utility knife. A moment later he was flashing a grin at them, and hefting his own reactors. “Now,” he said, “let’s go back. We’ve still got two stops to go.”

“Where else are we fookin’ going?” Richard rightly objected. “We’re not supposed to be your fookin’ pack-mules, you know.”

The madman’s grin widened. “Art of war, mate,” he said. “It’s time for me to get to know my enemy. We’re going over to the Hierarchy ship.”

Hvek and Twanri were not bad people. They did not deserve to die. Neither did Mikhael. But in the Hierarchy, we are dealing with the kind of toes that are best left unstepped-on. And we had stepped heavily indeed.

Neither of the Corti suspected just how much Mikhael and I could hear, you see. They deactivated their translators when they wished to converse in private, and for the first two years, that approach worked. By the third, well… Corti speech is perfectly comprehensible to the human ear, after all. Aep rhafe newn dte etchlimya ogtup oonb zurtuu. We learned how to listen to them.

They spoke at length about this Hierarchy, enthused about how Twanri’s hypothesis was gaining evidence with every excursion. Alas, I never overheard them repeat exactly what that hypothesis was - they must both have been so intimately familiar with it that to speak it aloud would have been a waste of their time. But the essentials were clear. For some reason, within only twenty or thirty years at most after first splitting the atom, every species that has ever accomplished an industrial civilization as a native of a deathworld, has self-destructed, spectacularly.

We ourselves came painfully close, as I’m sure you know, but Twanri seemed to take that as proof that, rather than being an inevitable product of deathworld mentalities, perhaps these extinctions were precipitated somehow. She sense the invisible hand of this Hierarchy, gently pushing so many wonderful peoples off the precipice and into the long dark.

I dismissed the idea as excessive and outlandish, right up until the moment our ship came under attack. __

“Spot”. Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Saunders had installed the reactor cylinders as soon as they’d returned to the ship, and even without a passing knowledge in how alien shit worked, Michael could see the difference they made; the movements of the ship were faster and more reactive, while Saunders seemed less inclined to take painstaking lengths to ensure every little movement was the right one. They’d taken a quick trip out across the continent at incredible speeds before arriving in a forest clearing where the only thing of note had been an alien landing pod.

This, Saunders had explained, was the means by which Jennifer Delaney had reached the planet, but it was stripped of whatever he had been hoping to find. He hadn’t left empty handed, however, and had come away with a piece of tech he’d called the navigational unit.

After that they’d returned to the waters near the base, but this time they had remained above the water and Saunders had been content to conduct the dive by himself. The waters here were clearer than by the more recent crash, however, and the remains of a far more broken vessel were scattered on the sea floor below.

Michael squinted to see through the water, trying to get a good view. It was smaller than the previous ship by a long way, and there was more of it missing than remained. “What’s this fuckin’ thing then?”

“Space Illuminati starship,” Saunders answered candidly, and shortly noticed the looks this statement received. “Not making it up.”

Michael scoffed, but he remembered the interminable briefings back on Earth. The point had stuck that the galaxy was a damned strange place and that humanity’s combined experience of it to date probably wasn’t yet even a scratch on the surface. Next to the space dragons, UFO-nut big-eyed aliens and genuine bug-eyed monsters

“No shite?” Richard muttered, his attention returning to the shattered vessel. “Looks like it’s been blown to fookin’ ’ell!”

Saunders flashed the mad grin at him. “Not all of it, I hope, because otherwise this will be a waste of my fucking time.”

Saunders dove into the waters a moment later, leaving Michael and Richard to watch him from above, although if it hadn’t been for the small glow of light from the propulsion device they’d have lost sight of him amidst all the ruin.

“Holy shit…” Saunders muttered several minutes into his trip, prompting Michael to demand a report, only to discover that the madman was easily startled by nothing more than a fuckin’ fish; at least he could be entertaining.

When he did finally return, it was with a sack full of goodies, and he was eager to try them out. Richard and Michael, still frustratingly dependent on the Australian to get them home, sat patiently while Saunders fiddled with what he’d recovered, plugging in device after device until he finally came to one that caught his attention.

That one had spoken his name. Saunders had paused, aghast, muttered the word ‘tricks’, and had then commenced a conversation with an alien speaker that included some of what Powell had told them and a shitload more besides, even if they could only understand his half of it. Michael and Richard exchanged a glance. FTL communication was supposedly expensive as all hell and low- bandwidth even for the Corti, which was about the only thing that exonerated Saunders of any suspicion that he might be talking to some kind of handler or agent.

For all their boredom, both men were career spec-ops, and knew valuable intel when they heard it - they absorbed every word for later reporting to the Captain. They listened for hours before the Australian unplugged the device and returned to the cockpit, whereupon he set course, at long last, for Folctha. His shoulders had tensed and risen and his expression was murder itself.

“We going home?” Michael checked, acutely aware that if Saunders chose now to set the ship to fly off to some godforsaken end of creation pursuing this ‘Hierarchy’, then both he and Richard were along for the ride and unable to fly the ship.

Saunders turned to look at him with a new kind of cold, hard gaze. It was the kind that revealed a perfectly lucid man in full possession of his faculties - however temporarily that might be - and wanting to use them all to kill someone. Michael felt a chill as that hateful gaze landed on him; he had considered Saunders a threat before, though merely a disjointed one that could be dealt with; the lucid man before him was a different beast altogether, one wearing the face of the War himself. It was the first time he’d actually looked like a soldier, to Michael’s eyes, and therefore truly dangerous.

“Yeah,” he confirmed coldly, “So take a fucking seat. I’ve got intel Powell is going to want to hear.”

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada, Earth

Did you ever encounter Allebenellin, Mister Jenkins? Vile things. Mercenary, callous, venal and stupid. The answer to how a race with such a startling lack of ambition ever accomplished intelligence, let alone how they used tools prior to the invention of their exoskeletons given that they lack limbs, eludes and mystifies me.

In any case, we were crippled with the first volley. They boarded soon afterwards, and poor Hvek and Twanri were reduced to jelly by their pulse fire, sprayed across the command deck. These were the biggest ones, so-called “anti-tank” weaponry, and their fire caught Mikhael in the head. The blow killed him: massive fracturing and cerebral haemorrhage.

Nevertheless, it gave the worms pause, because where the Corti had simply… splattered… here was a creature so tough that, though dead, he was still pretty much intact. They may even have thought he was still alive, which brought me the few seconds I needed to shout the commands, in Corti, which opened all of the doors and lowered the atmosphere retainment fields even as I shut the hatch of my escape pod. Every single one of the marauders was either blown out into space, or else died gasping.

I escaped.

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches.

Powell heard the starship arrive long before Saunders made his usual commotion; the ship had come in fast and powerful, filling the air with a rolling thunder that echoed through the surrounding forests and sent alien birds into alien sky. Saunders was returning in a hurry, so the news probably wasn’t good, and by the time Powell had found him he was holding Lance Corporal Danny Michael in an arm lock and whispering sweet fookin’ nothings into his ear while Corporal Paul Richard just stood around holding his fookin’ dick.

Powell approached the trio, by now a spectacle for the colonists, with a fairly restrained expression of being completely pissed off, striding over into their view as he demanded to know what the fook they thought they were doing.

Saunders released the man as soon as he heard Powell’s voice, turning to face him with a fiercely present look in his eyes. There was focus there, with anger driving it, and Powell realised he’d have to step carefully until it passed. “Looking for you, Powell,” he replied. “Got a spare minute to deal with another lifetime of bullshit?”

“More bad _fookin’_news,” Powell breathed, having expected as much and still finding himself irritated at the man’s glib insubordination in spite of having expected that as well. To calm himself he had to remind himself that this was a man who had stripped down an alien cloaking system and had provided humanity with basic notes on how it seemed to function, thus proving himself useful even if he was as fookin’ shitful as a man could be. “Fookin’ wonderful. Yeah, I’ve got a spare minute.”

They stepped into the office Powell had reserved for himself, closing the door to hide their conversation away from the colonial rumourmongers; the things that were already circulating were bad enough without the truth getting out there. Powell took his seat, knowing he’d prefer to be seated for what was to come if Saunders was being even half-serious, and looked up at the man. “Start talkin’, Saunders.”

Saunders briefed him. Properly briefed him, his voice more level than it ever had been. The story was typically insane - a bat-girl trapped in a ping- pong ball sized computer, and what he’d learned from her. It wasn’t something that Powell would normally have believed, because who would really have thought that some fook’ed up alien version of the Matrix could actually exist? Saunders believed it, though, and more impressively when he glanced at Michael and Richard, they nodded slowly from behind Saunders’ eyeline.

Accepting that also meant that accepting the kind of headache Saunders had been promising; taking a man captive was one thing, but taking his mind was quite another, and presented the kind of security risks he’d have preferred stayed in science fiction.

Saunders finished his explanation by stating his intention to leave as soon as he possibly could. “Spot can fly,” he said, apparently having named his ship like he’d have named a dog, “Even if she’s not pretty, and I’ve got things I need to protect.”

“Don’t forget our deal,” Powell reminded him. “Good faith.”

Saunders nodded. “I’m going to need guns. Guns and ammunition.”

That was more than Powell was willing to simply give away, even in return for Saunders fulfilling their agreement. He’d have to be just as mad as Saunders to start handing over firearms. “I’m not handing over weapons to a crazy man without a good fookin’ reason,” he said. “Quid pro quo, remember?”

“Then I might have something you find useful,” Saunders returned with a smile. “I can build you a scanner that will let you know if hunters are in the system, cloaked or not. Then you won’t be caught with your fucking pants down.”

That was exactly the sort of thing he should have been offering for free, but Powell held his tongue. There was no need to antagonise the man when simply trading away a single weapon and some ammunition would provide him with more of a return on investment than he had believed possible. The Hunters represented a serious threat to the colony, and any way they could reduce that threat was worth the risk. Besides, had he been in Saunders’ situation he’d have done the same, reserving a bartering chip just in case. He’d have reserved several, in fact, which naturally made him suspect that Saunders had done so too.

It was becoming clear that, bug-fuck though he might be, Saunders was going to be an asset. Albeit, one that would need careful handling at arms’ length.

The man may have succeeded in restoring one of the ruined ships to life, but Powell thought he would wait until he produced what he promised. “If you can build us that," Powell promised, “I’ll make sure you get what you asked for.”

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada, Earth

If you’re interested, the escape pod is probably still where I left it, somewhere in the Monongahela national forest. I walked until I found a road, hitch-hiked to Charlottesville. Hvek and Twanri had assured me that I would be amply rewarded for my service, and they had not lied - the Swiss bank account they had made me memorise the details of contained a lavish supply of funds, more than enough to pick a town at random on the map and work my way here by Greyhound.

Most went on this apartment, and on reinforcing it. The rest… keeps me alive, so I can tell my story.

The only reason I tell it to you now, Mr. Jenkins, is because, as you say, entering this room has probably already doomed you. I hope at least that the knowledge of WHO is going to kill you brings you some comfort.

Folctha colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Back on Earth, much thought and theorycrafting had gone into the problem of supplying the soldiers for the possibility of shipboard combat, where a stray bullet could mean fatal decompression, even with the damage control fields. Options had been considered up to and including reviving kinetic pulse weaponry, but with the tactical environment now apparently including things that were similarly tough to humanity - not to mention other humans - that project had been abandoned. Again.

The fact was, the only weaponry that could reliably hurt humans, or anything that had the ability to stand up to a human in combat, was also dangerous to starships and there was no way around that.

Unless - and Legsy was shamelessly self-congratulatory about this - you gave up on relying on the gun to be everything at once, and took a look at the ammo instead. Starships meant corridors. Corridors meant shotguns. Shotguns meant buckshot and slugs for dealing with humans, birdshot for the squishy ones. Problem solved. The smaller pellets of birdshot would have a much lower chance of damaging a starship, but were still devastating to alien flesh, and if you came across anything tougher, you just needed to use different ammo. Problem fucking solved.

The rest had involved persuading the mission planners to furnish their armory with magazine-fed SPAS-15s, which could rapidly change ammo types in response to a shifting tactical situation, rather than tube-fed M1014s which were a little less flexible. That had been easy once Powell had been convinced to back his towering celtic gun-nut comrade. Predicting the need to possibly arm the civilian colonists, the soldiers had arrived with more than they themselves could possibly use, and “losing” one of the shotguns to “Operational circumstances” seemed only reasonable considering how well Saunders had held up his end of the bargain. It went down on the paperwork as having been dismantled for spare parts, and the ammo was written off to “water damage”.

Powell entered the tent that served as the camp’s armoury in time to hear Legsy ask “Watcha think, boy, reckon that’ll do?” as he handed the gun over.

Adrian Saunders looked like a hundred Christmases had all arrived at once, and held the gun like it was the most wonderful thing he had ever laid hands or eyes on. Then, seeing Powell enter, he tried to sober his expression a little. “I… uh… yeah. Yeah, that’ll do.” he said, unconvincingly.

Legsy grinned, handed over the ammunition and then busied himself with cleaning the Minimi that was his own weapon of choice.

“The new sensors are up.” Powell said. “And a fook of a lot better than the old ones. I might just have been wrong about you being a waste of good calories.”

Adrian dodged the apology. “Jen could have told you that.” He replied.

The man still nettled Powell, for all that he’d proven his obvious worth as an engineer and an expert in alien technology. He’d obviously started out as a stubborn bastard, and his experiences had only driven him further into his intransigent shell, even if he put up a smokescreen of flippant no-fucks-given attitude to cover it.

“Jen thinks you’re dead.” he said. “Not a lot of point going into the skills and talents of a fookin’ dead man, is there?

Really, he should just stop poking. Saunders was badly damaged - best to just get on with it. He exercised some willpower and resolved to stick to the facts from now on and leave his opinions out of it. Saunders might be a danger to the colony, but he’d proven he was a useful risk, and probably not worth antagonising.

“Might have been worth knowing you on top of a fuckload of salvageable alien tech though, wouldn’t it?”

Powell wanted to point out that the only man on the planet - the only man in the whole human race as far as he knew - that could even have identified the technology as being still salvageable and in working condition was Adrian himself. Jen had her own set of skills, a sharp mind and was a quick study, but she hadn’t once shown anything more than a working, user-level knowledge of alien technology.

He stuck to his resolution though and didn’t rise to it.

“Your ship ready?”

“Yep. Spot’s all ready to go, provisions are all loaded… Just need to hump the artillery here and I’m done mate."

Powell didn’t comment that Saunders was holding a bag full of shotgun shells as if it were his cricketing gear, without appearing to be really conscious of it. Even in Cimbrean’s low gravity, that was an indication of the “Alien Mutant Juice” marinating his tissues.

“Good. Right now, according to those fancy sensors you set up, you’ve got a clear sky. No warp signatures within range and that’s… what, a couple parsecs or so?”

“About that.” Saunders agreed.

“So, you’ve got a clear run to get out of here without telling the galaxy about it, and there’s no guarantee that’s going to be true tomorrow. So, would you mind awfully-”

“-fucking off?” Adrian finished, interrupting him with a grin. “Too bad, I’ll miss the food here mate.”

Powell snorted, and extended a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Saunders shook it.

“Just try not to get killed you crazy fookin’ prick.” he said.

Adrian grinned. “So far so good.”

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada, Earth

“…That’s a brutal story, eh?”

“And Terri Boone died after hearing it, Martin.”

“Just playing Devil’s Advocate here, Kevin but… that doesn’t necessarily suggest there’s an alien conspiracy involved.”

“Fuck devil’s advocate. Do you want to go extinct?”

“…No.”

“Neither do I.”

Kevin Jenkins put his phone away, expression grim. “If I’m wrong and Singh is just a crazy hermit, oh well. Sorry to have wasted the loonies, man.”

He leaned forward. “But if I’m right then one of these fuckers could be on Earth right now, looking for an opening. With stakes that high, I think maybe we should take this ‘Hierarchy’ business seriously.” he said. “Don’t you?”

Chapter 17
Chapter 14: “The Hornet’s Nest” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Date Point: 3Y 8M 2W AV

+0014+: Another failure.

+0023+: There have been victories also.

+0014+: Too few.

+0003+: The efforts of The Discarded work to our advantage.

+0006+: As I recall, Three, you were among those who advocated their termination.

+0003+: Your point?

+0006+: An acknowledgement of your fallibility would seem fitting.

+0004+: Petty bickering like that is for the Hosts. Three’s competence is not in doubt.

+0006+: As you say, Four.

+0014+: To address the observation: yes, The Discarded have helped contain the Deathworlders. That is a balance of power that will shift, as things are going. They buy us time, not victory.

+0016+: Agreed

+0031+: Agreed

+0004+: Agreed

+0006+: Perhaps a more senior agent should be placed in charge of that cell.

+0023+: Seventy-Two’s competence is also not in doubt.

+0003+: Your naysaying is becoming unconstructive, Six.

+0014+: The problem is escalating. This most recent failure was not orchestrated by a Deathworlder at all.

+0019+: Are you proposing that the Hosts might become energised and inspired?

+0014+: I am proposing that they already are.

System notification: User 0020 has joined.

+0006+: Well now. You grace us with your illustrious presence.

+0004+: Twenty assumes more risk than any of us. You will be respectful.

+0020+: Six’s respect is not required. I have completed my analysis of the debris field.

+0006+: Please, enlighten us. What miracle have the Deathworlders performed this time? Can they turn their skin to steel and shoot lasers from their eyes?

+0004+: Six.

+0006+: Twenty’s last report implied that the Deathworlders have solved the single-end wormhole problem. I will not apologise for my skepticism.

+0020+: No such inconsistencies. They appear to have an agent. A fast ship passed through the area shortly before the strike. I believe that it deployed tiny satellites, which self-destructed after the battle. If those satellites were stealthed and carried displacement beacons then it would explain the observed ability of these new ships to jump inside the sphere of engagement.

+0006+: It took you this long to determine that?

+0020+: Without compromising myself, yes.

+0006+: Useless.

System Notification: User 0006 was muted by User 0004. Reason: Correct your attitude.

+0014+: That was satisfying to watch.

+0004+: Correct yours too, or you will be next.

+0020+: I will not apologise for exercising discretion, caution and patience. Infiltrating The Discarded was difficult enough last time. They are not stupid.

+0002+: Six may be abrasive, but dissenting voices are valuable: They may cast the light where we are afraid to shine it. Soothe your wounded pride and examine the facts - these Deathworlders move quickly. If we are to successfully contain and destroy them then we must be similarly swift.

System Notification: User 0006 was granted speaking privileges by User 0002.

+0006+: At least somebody here pays attention.

+0002+: We have not granted you license to be disrespectful.

+0006+: …yes, Two.

+0020+: With respect, Two, avoidable setbacks will only serve to slow us in the long term. Hasty and ill-advised assaults have already cost us too much. The next must be slow, must be stealthy, must be unanticipated, and must be devastating.

+0008+: The evidence does appear to favour that.

+0020+: We must also put aside our power politics for now. Zero and Thirteen both failed because they acted alone in search of glory, and now they both need replacing. Now Twenty-Four has gone the same way. We must stop allowing them to pick us off one by one: This is too important for ego.

+0005+: You do not tell higher ranks what we “must” do.

+0020+: Then I respectfully suggest that we all set aside our pride and focus on combining our efforts to bring practical resolution to this crisis.

+0002+: Twenty has a duty to express their opinion in as forceful a manner as is necessary for its proper communication. You, Five, have a duty to heed what is said rather than overlooking it for the sake of pride and decorum.

+0005+: …yes, Two.

+0002+: We do not - yet - need to involve One. If Twenty’s approach is successful - if we collaborate to deliver a single, unforeseen and decisive blow to the Deathworlders - then One will never need to know this whole debacle ever happened.

+0004+: I still say that it was an unforgivable oversight not to foresee that intelligence might arise on that planet a second time.

+0006+: Two, may I have permission to remind Four that she was in equal part responsible for that oversight?

+0004+: How dare you!

+0002+: We believe you just did. Our permission would be redundant.

+0004+: I request a punishment.

+0002+: Denied. The observation is accurate, and even insubordination has its value. Nevertheless, Six, a little less insubordination, please?

+0006+: Of course, Two. You only had to ask.

System notification: User 0004 has signed out.

+0094+: The Deathworlders call that a “ragequit”, I believe.

+0057+: Apt.

+0014+: Can we please focus?

+0006+: Agreed. What do you recommend, Twenty?

+0020+: The Discarded.

+0014+: Sensible. They have already declared motive, they will seize the opportunity if it arises, and our risk of discovery will be negligible.

+0010+: We will need to remember to continue to monitor the deathworld after the scouring is complete.

+0006+: We will also need to resume monitoring on all the ones that have already been scoured. Some of them are nearly as old as Earth.

+0014+: You use their name for it?

+0006+: “Strak’kel” is so old-fashioned, and both names have a bit more life to them than “MY-31 043-3-TT12-I” don’t you think?

+0023+: Whatever Six calls them, we will need to re-survey more than a thousand planets to make sure they are still clear.

+0005+: If that surveydiscovers even one nascent civilization, then it will have been worth the trouble.

+0020+: I must go. I will do what I can to keep the Great Hunt high in the minds of The Discarded.

System notification: User 0020 has signed out.

+0002+: Meanwhile, the rest of us will cease to engage the Deathworlders piecemeal. We must deal with their homeworld first before any attempt can be made at clearing out whatever last little holes and hideaways they may find.

+0003+: The first objective in support of that goal will be the identification and termination of this agent of theirs.

+0006+: Wrong. The first objective in support of that goal will be the identification and conversion of this agent of theirs.

+0003+: Two, I request permission to punish Six’s insubordination.

+0002+: Denied. Cease petitioning us every time Six offends your pride. You should also cease to be so easily irritated by accurate corrections. Identification and conversion of the agent will become our top priority. Discussion concluded.

System notification: Session closed.

System notification: Private session between User 0002 and User 0006 Session Opened

+0002+: Your attitude does warrant our attention, however. We are a Hierarchy, remember. You should remember your place.

+0006+: I am the foundation for those above me. My role is to support and strengthen them all.

+0002+: Well recited. We assume you are making a point?

+0006+: Pride is a weakness. It is the weakness, in fact, that has cost us the most against these Deathworlders. I judge that my duty to the strength and success of the Hierarchy and the indefinite survival of our people outweighs the tradition of decorum. It is not my duty to - as the humans eloquently put it - “kiss their asses”.

+0002+: And that is why we are demoting you to seventy-two.

+0006+: I see. I’m to take over from the current incumbent? Discreetly?

+002+: Indeed. You care about the result, not about your rank. That… atypical approach may be of use here, in this atypical scenario.

+0006+: And if you’re very lucky, your report to One will mention the Humans only as just another Scoured species.

+0002+: We intend not to rely on luck.

System notification: Session closed.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV
San Diego, California, USA, Earth

The man standing in front of him needed to clear his throat three times before it cut through the fog of fatigue that had Gabriel’s mind in a choke hold and his forehead pressed to the desk. He looked up, and stole a swig of his almost-too-cold coffee before addressing the man in the suit who was waiting patiently for him.

“Help you?” he asked. The man smiled, and produced a card. It was small, white, and mostly filled with the man’s face and the badge of the Central Intelligence Agency.

“Agent Hamilton.” He said by way of an introduction, then aimed a thumb over his shoulder at a woman in a nearly identical suit whom Ares hadn’t even noticed. She had a black leather work folder under her arm and was holding three Starbucks coffees in a cardboard carrier. “This is Agent Williams.”

“You want the Latte, the Mocha, or the Americano?” she asked, offering the coffee.

Gabriel blinked, then managed to get his brain into second gear. “Uh… the Latte, thanks.” He said. She handed it to him, and he took a sip, grateful for coffee that was the right temperature and tasted a damnsight better than the copper-tasting poison the office’s overworked percolator produced. “Please, sit down.”

“I’d ask what the Agency is doing here, but I’m guessing it has something to do with a guy in New Jersey.” he said, taking a not-so-wild stab in the not- so-dark. After all, he’d seen the news.

Williams nodded - she had taken the Americano - and set down the folder on Gabriel’s desk. “A mister Ravinder Singh’s apartment was bombed in the small hours of yesterday morning, killing the occupant and three of his neighbors.” She said.

“That seems more like a police or Bureau matter.”

“His name wasn’t Ravinder Singh.” Hamilton added. “He was one of the top men in the Indian nuclear weapons program, who went missing a few years ago. And now he’s turned up dead in a bombing on the East coast, to me that seems a lot like an Agency matter."

“I didn’t know that part.” Ares confessed. He indicated the folder. “May I?”

Williams turned it around and opened it for him. They sipped their coffees patiently as he skimmed the documents within. It was clear why they had come to him. A still recovered from the camera above “Singh”’s door offered a clear identification for Kevin Jenkins: it was stapled to a summary of the legwork that had gone into tracing him. It wasn’t a long summary - Jenkins collecting his bag at Newark, his boarding pass, Jenkins going through security at San Diego International Airport, Jenkins checking out of the Bristol Hotel, a bit of a luck with the receptionist remembering that he had mentioned being in town for a funeral, cross-referenced against the times he entered and exited the hotel to Terri Boone’s funeral, and that in turn had led them to her family who had pointed them to Ares. Most of the investigation would have consisted of the coast-to-coast flight.

“You don’t have much on him yet, do you?” he commented, noting that aside from Jenkins’ name there was precious little of his personal details in the folder.

“That’s why we’re here.” Hamilton replied, evenly. “You had a good long conversation with him at that funeral.”

Gabriel sat back and took another swig of his coffee. “Yeah, I sent him to talk to Singh. He was close with the victim. She was a P. I., shot dead an assailant about, uh, six months before the second assailant got her. She knew she was in trouble and cited Singh as a witness who might be able to reveal the motive.”

“Could Jenkins have thought Singh was responsible and taken revenge?” Williams suggested.

“No.” Ares told them, not even bothering to conceal how little he thought of the idea. “He went to talk to Singh to try and get at the real responsible party… no sign of him since?”

“His rental car was returned and there was a possible ID at a gas station, heading north, but that’s all I know of so far.” Hamilton told him.

“Let me spare you the legwork. He’ll have gone to Scotch Creek.”

The two Agents did a synchronized glance at one another, then back at him, letting their expressions make the demand for elucidation.

“He said he’s the bartender up there.” Gabriel clarified.

“The bartender.” Williams repeated, skeptically.

Hamilton coughed. “Thank God for that. If he’s civilian base staff acting on his own then it’s a lot less of a problem than the Canadian military getting involved in a bombing down here.”

Ares frowned. “They’re our allies and friends, aren’t they?”

“They are, but allies and friends go through official channels over stuff like this.” Hamilton said. “Canada’s already catching a lot of political flak over their monopoly on alien technology, if there was any suggestion - right or not

• that they’d sent an agent down here who’d bombed an American building and killed American citizens, it’d put a serious dent in any relationship, however good."

“Not to mention the repercussions abroad.” added Williams.

"Entiendo. Well, I guess now you know who to make the call to, so you can go through official channels."

“Sure, and thanks. But I’d like to know more about this murder. You think they’re related?”

“The victim claimed as much and I’m convinced.” Ares allowed. “You guys have open minds?”

“Hard not to, nowadays.” Williams said, indicating the TV that was always playing quietly in the corner of the office, tuned to the news. The financial news was nothing but coverage of the partnership between several major companies - led by BAE, BHP Billiton and Red Bull - to collectively enter the lucrative market of asteroid mining, a feat that would have been impossible only three years previously. The news of the partnership had sent stocks in the involved corporations soaring, but the value of several elements - especially Platinum - had all taken a serious hit. It was just the latest in the long and storied drama of what was becoming known as the Second Space Race.

Gabriel nodded. “Then let me show you the evidence she left.” he said.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV Planet Guvendruduvundraguvnegrugnuvenderelgureg-ugunduvug Guvnuragnaguvendrugun Confederacy, Dominion Core

The annual Ugunduvug-vanrundrneg - the “world-storm” - was in its second day and approaching full force, powered by a quirk in the tidal dance of the Guvnurag homeworld’s three moons. This year’s looked set to be a relatively mild one, with only three dark striations of lightning-blistered cloud having so far formed from the angry black girdle around the equator, to lash out northwards and southwards towards the poles.

Such a comparatively gentle storm would easily be handled by the layers of storm protection installed by hundreds of generations of Guvnurag, from the simple earthworks and storm drains to channel and disperse the flash-flood waters, to the more modern innovations like the tidal barrages, the artificial barrier reefs, and the huge force fields that needed most of the year to charge.

In truth, Guvnurag were quite capable of enduring the Ugunduvug-vanrundrneg out in the open, huddled in a warm ball of furry bodies. Their thick, shaggy fur was equally adept at warming and waterproofing, and their large size meant a low relative surface area, combating the effects of cold and exposure. But it was by no means a safe or pleasant way to weather the storm, and most of the major engineering feats of Guvnurag history had arisen from the need to conquer their planet’s annual weather tantrum.

All of which was a little academic from geosynchronous orbit, of course. Space was infamously short on weather of any description. But it was hard for Councillor Vedreg of the Dominion Security Council to look down on the planet of his birth during this most iconic season and not reflect on such things.

Especially, he considered, when he was quite improperly being left waiting. The Confederacy’s Secretary of Security was uncharacteristically taking her time implying that something had come up which was important enough to keep her direct superior waiting - and uninformed, which seemed thoroughly unlikely

• or else there had been an unexpected delay.

When she arrived, however, the Secretary’s flanks were thrumming an incandescent, furious crimson. She was, by any sapient being’s standards, in a roaring snit to match the fury their homeworld was unleashing upon itself at this very moment.

Guvnurag folklore had always claimed that a gentle world-storm meant turbulent times ahead, as all the energy the world failed to release was diverted elsewhere. Vedreg, as with all modern Guvnurag, dismissed that as superstition, but right now, it seemed to be eerily prescient.

“Secretary Meerednegnel.” he greeted her, properly. “Shall I, just this once, dispense with the formalities and inquire as to what has precipitated your anger?”

Meered crashed down into her chair, vibrating the ornaments on her desk. “One of the missing system-shields has reported in.” She declared.

“I see.”

Vedreg set, rather more gently, in his own seat. The theft of two of their system defence fields - a pair that had been manufactured for delivery to two of the Dominion’s most vulnerable front-line staging worlds to keep the pressure on the Alliance - had been deeply embarrassing for the Confederacy, not least because even their best investigators couldn’t figure out how it had been managed. While the handling facility had reported a ship landing and departing around about the time of the theft, the timing was simply impossible. Nothing could have covered the intervening distance so quickly without being detected.

“May I ask where?” he inquired.

“The Far Reaches.” Meered replied.

Vedreg shaded a worried brown. That was bad news for any hope of recovery or investigation. The Far Reaches were aptly named - distantly removed from the Dominion Core, that region had only ever been accessible along a small number of spacelanes, most of which had filled in with interstellar gas and dust from lack of maintenance thanks to the war. While the tiny particles were no threat to a starship, the burst of high-energy particles they emitted upon entering the warp field could ionize the hull and degrade ship’s systems, or even build up a lethal capacitance that, if it discharged, could fry equipment or unfortunate crew. Even navies, pirates and even the Hunters preferred to stick to the cleared spacelanes where they could.

The few lanes that remained open in the area passed through annexed Celzi space and were heavily checkpointed. Sending a lane-clearing fleet to open a new route would take several cycles even if the Alliance left them alone. All in all, the news of the system shield’s new location was frustrating, even if it did come with the saving grace that it apparently hadn’t fallen into Alliance hands.

The Alliance… something about the Alliance? The memory tickled at him, elusive until he interrogated his cybernetic memory enhancement chip, which gladly supplied him with a connection between the Alliance and the Far Reaches.

"Where in the Far Reaches, may I ask?" he inquired.

“Some private retreat planet with one of those terse Corti names.” the Secretary told him. “Why?”

“It wasn’t Cimbrean, perchance?"

“…As a matter of fact, it was.” She shaded pink and teal, a cocktail of surprise and curiosity. “You’re familiar with it?”

“Oh dear.”

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV San Diego, California, USA, Earth

“Taking your work home, Gabe?”

Ares smiled. Detective James “Jimmy” Rowan was the closest thing he had to a good friend among the homicide detectives, and the two often backed each other up as partners.

“The CIA’s getting involved now. I need to get it all sorted out for them.” he said. The briefing with Hamilton and Williams had taken several hours as they had gone through all of Boone’s bequeathed findings and suspicions, followed by the fruits of Gabriel’s own research. Superior as his resources were, he had other cases to worry about, and so hadn’t been able to put the time in that he would have liked.

“The Agency. Man.” Jimmy leaned back in his chair, sucking on one of the tootsie pops that were supposedly helping him quit smoking. “Hell of a fuckin’ thing.”

“Nice guys, I thought.” Gabriel commented. “Not like your ray-ban wearing spook pendejos from those movies you love." “Yeah, reality’s always more boring.” Jimmy agreed. “Hey, don’t blow both your days off on that folder, okay? Go out, get drunk, get laid.”

“I was just going to watch NBA, man.”

“Come on, you can’t have had any action since your divorce, bro.” Jimmy insisted.

“Just because your balls need constant maintenance or they explode, doesn’t mean mine do.” Gabriel replied, smiling.

“Yeah, I know. Still not ready yet.” Jimmy gave up. “Enjoy your basketball, man.”

Gabriel lived only a few minutes’ drive from the precinct, in a nice but inexpensive apartment with a decent view of Downtown. Most days he didn’t even bother driving to work. Instead, he changed in the precinct locker room into his sweats, and jogged home, keeping his fitness up and working out the kinks and tensions of sitting at his desk for so many hours.

The exercise allowed his brain to freewheel, too. It was nice to get out of cop mode and just be Gabriel for a bit, but where Detective Ares was a cool and efficient professional, Gabriel was a worrier. The bombing, the CIA’s involvement, the casual brutality that had been inflicted on Terri Boone for digging exactly where he was digging now… If he’d bothered to drive in, he might even start checking his car for explosives.

As a result, he was in a strange mood when he got back to his apartment building - physically relaxed but mentally tense. He knew he was jumping at figurative shadows but he couldn’t forget that the first time he’d met Boone, she had just shot dead an intruder in her own apartment. An intruder who had very obviously been there to kill her.

And the lights were on in his. As was the TV - he could hear it.

This fact gave him several moments’ pause. He could see the glow under the door, and right now all his mind could spring to was that parking lot, and the carnage that had spread all over it.

He retrieved his gun from his bag and loaded it as slowly as he dared. He turned the key in the lock as quietly as he could, slipped inside, and ghosted along the hall carpet until he could poke his head gently around the corner and into the main room, ready to snap it back at the first hint of danger, convinced that his pounding heart would alert the intruder to his presence.

Somebody was sitting on his couch. His face was an unreadable skull mask in the television glow, and he definitely shouldn’t have been there. But there was no possibility that Gabriel could fail to recognise him.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV Planet Guvendruduvundraguvnegrugnuvenderelgureg-ugunduvug Guvnuragnaguvendrugun Confederacy, Dominion Core

“There was a pirate organisation that approached the Security Council some time ago. Their leader had come up with a… novel new idea.”

"Pirates? I wasn’t aware the Council was in the business of negotiating with murdering scum."

“These ones…” Vedreg’s flanks rippled through many colours as he hunted for the correct word, underpinned by a constant theme of awkward yellow. “introduced us to a new concept. 'Privateering’, they call it." he pronounced the English word very carefully: it fit awkwardly in the Guvnurag mouth.

“And what does that word translate as?”

“As they explained it, effectively, a Privateer accepts amnesty from one government for their crimes in return for confining their predations to the shipping of that government’s enemy.” he shuffled uncomfortably. “They also made it explicitly clear that they intended to allow any ship which simply surrendered and handed over their cargo to leave, alive and intact and that they would stamp out any pirate competition in the area."

Meered’s flanks glowed like embers, aghast. “And the Council agreed to this?" she asked.

“The Council is headed more by practicalists than idealists.” Vedreg admitted. “They were promised a reduction in piracy affecting our own shipping in the region, and effective disruption of Alliance shipping which might divert Celzi ships from the war.” There was a sweep of colour up his flank - the equivalent of a dismissive, contemptuous sniff. “If memory serves, Cimbrean was the base of operations for these ‘Privateers’.”

“What an extraordinary idea. But however competent or unusual these pirates, they’re still pirates, and whoever stole the generator was no gutter criminal." Meered scoffed.

“If memory serves…” Vedreg said, slowly. “The ringleader of these privateers is a human.”

Meered’s disbelief only served to increase the hue of her flanks. “Humans aren’t magical, Councillor Vedregnegnug.” she chastised.

“No, but they… may I show you something?”

“In support of your claim? Very well.”

Vedreg bowed his head and spread his arms - a gesture of thanks - and spoke to the office. “Room. Access my personal entertainment files. Folder “Earth”, search “London Marathon”.” he intoned. A chime indicated that the requested item had been found. “Display.”

They watched.

“(Twenty-seven miles)?!” Meered exclaimed, after only a few minutes.

“In (three hours) or less.” Vedreg added. Meered’s flanks turned white.

“That… could well explain the theft.” she said. “The sensors on the ground weren’t equipped to detect life forms.”

“It is to be hoped.” Vedreg said. “That this human’s loyalty to their species is less than their loyalty to the pirate band they have formed. I will request a status update. Hopefully this is just a case of pirates being pirates.”

Meered was clearly not hopeful. “And if it isn’t?”

“Then we had best start hoping that pessimist, Furfeg, is wrong.”

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV San Diego, California, USA, Earth.

“Hey Dad.”

Gabriel relaxed. Fortunately, Adam Ares hadn’t looked in his father’s direction, and so didn’t notice him lower the gun and relax.

“Hey yourself.” Gabriel replied, stepping into the room and ruffling the scrawny teenager’s hair. “Wasn’t expecting you today, amigo."

Adam pulled away from the hair-ruffle. “Mom’s being Mom again." he said, which was all the explanation he needed to give. This wasn’t the first time Adam had caught a cab over here to get away from her, and almost certainly wouldn’t be the last. It was why he had his own key, and the Superintendent knew his face and to let him in from the time his mother had confiscated it.

“Okay. Did you call Mrs. Almodovar?” Gabriel’s badge went a long way toward smoothing things over with DCFS, but it was still so much easier if their officer knew about these events when they happened, and heard them from Adam himself. He stuck the gun in the safe - the first thing he always did when he got home anyway, so fortunately there was nothing unusual there for Adam to notice.

Adam sighed. "Yes, Dad, I called Mrs. Almodovar." he confirmed, his voice full of all the weariness of a fifteen-year old who felt his competence was being question.

“Alright… woah.”

Adam had been watching a Game of Thrones rerun, and his ears went a brilliant pink as one of Emilia Clarke’s innumerable skin scenes filled the huge TV.

“Ah, shit, sorry Dad, I know it’s a bit… I mean, uh…” Adam stumbled.

“It’s cool, amigo. Just don’t jerk off on my couch or nothing."

"Da-ad! Yuk!"

Gabriel laughed, and shucked off his running shoes, which he kicked into the corner. He stole a glance at the on-screen nudity again before groaning and stretching his way through to the kitchen where he grabbed a cold beer from the fridge.

“I can’t be bothered to cook tonight, you want pizza or chinese?” he called.

“Chinese please.”

Gabriel knew his son’s preference, and placed the order - hell, the people down at Dragon Chef probably knew their usual order by now - then slumped down on the couch, glad to be home.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asked, when the commercials came on.

“She treats me like an idiot.” Adam complained. Clearly he’d been busting to get it out. “I… there’s this girl at school…”

“Cool.”

“I asked Mom for… advice, you know? On how to ask her out? I don’t even know why she got mad, she just started calling me a little sissy, and…”

“She’s been drinking again, huh?”

“Yeah…” They watched the commercials for a while, before Adam wiped his eyes. “Fuck the courts, man.” he said, for about the thousandth time since the custody hearings.

Gabriel gave his boy a one-armed hug. “A couple more years, amigo. You’ll get through it."

“Yeah. She probably wouldn’t let me date Ava anyway.” Adam groused.

“Ava? So that’s her name. You were hanging out with her by the gates when I picked you up last week, right?”

“…Yeah?”

“Shit, amigo, if you’re going to let your mom stop you from asking her out you’re a dumbass." Gabriel said. “Go for it!”

“What if she says no?”

Gabriel suppressed a laugh. “Little man, I saw the way she was looking at you. No way is that gonna happen.”

“She was?” Adam looked stunned and delighted. “but… nah, she wasn’t. Was she?”

“Hey, I’m a cop. Reading people is my job. And here’s a pro tip for you, amigo: If a girl’s got all her weight on one foot like that, and is playing with her hair and biting her lip? She wants you."

“You’re just saying that.”

“Google that shit, man.”

They sat in comfortable silence until the food arrived, though it was plain that Adam was no longer watching the screen. He only spoke again when they were eating at the table.

“So.. what, just ask her? Is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“How? I mean, like, what do I say?”

“You like her?”

“Hell yeah I like her!” Adam exclaimed.

“Why? Is it just because she’s pretty?” She’d seemed more than that to Gabriel’s eye from a distant, but he wanted Adam to have his priorities straight.

“You think she’s pretty?” Adam asked.

“I’m older than you, amigo, not blind." Gabriel chuckled. “Come on, d’you like her just because she’s pretty, or is she… clever, funny, what?"

“…Yeah. She is.”

“Cool. Lead with that. It’s not hard.”

“So, what do I say?” Adam persisted.

Gabriel shrugged. “Next time you see her, after you’ve said hello, if there’s like, an awkward pause or something, you just say “Hey… I really like you. You’re funny, you’re smart, you’re pretty, and I was hoping we could go out on a date”, something like that.”

Adam looked blank. “That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it. It’s not rocket surgery, man.” Gabriel grabbed the last dumpling and devoured it. For once, his son was too lost in thought to complain.

“But what if she says no?” He repeated.

Gabriel rolled his eyes and smiled, remembering how short his own confidence had been at that age. “Okay compadre, what I’m about to tell you may sound at first like the bleakest and most depressing thing in the world, but I promise this is the secret to love, okay?"

“What secret?”

Gabriel leaned forward. “There is no such thing, as a perfect girl.” he said. “There’s no “the one” or your “soulmate”. I know you’re really into her - and just trust your old man, she’s into you too - but she’s only human. If she DOES say no, then that’s her loss, okay? It’s not the end of the world. There’s other girls out there, and it’ll hurt and be embarrassing at first, but you’re tough, you’ll get on with your life and a handsome devil like you? You’ll be fending the ladies off with a bat.”

“You’re right, that sounds kinda shitty.” Adam agreed, with a weak smile.

“Trust me, it’s the best thing. You’ve got to understand, little man, relationships don’t just happen magically because an angel came down and touched you both, okay? That only happens in movies and pop music. You have to put work and effort into your girl, and it all starts with remembering that if she says no then she’s an idiot, and if she says yes then she’s the luckiest girl in the world, okay?”

“…okay.”

“D’you have have a few date ideas lined up?”

“Uh… I dunno, a movie?”

“Bad idea, amigo. Movies are just a couple of hours sitting in the dark ignoring each other, that’s no kind of a date. You wanna go do something where you’re actually interacting. Something she likes, and if you like it too, so much the better."

“Uh… she likes roller derby! She could teach me the rules while we watch?”

“Perfect!”

Gabriel finished his food. “Hey, can you clean this up? I’ma get your bedding out and hit the sack.”

“Sure, Dad…” Adam said. “And… thanks.”

“No problem.” Gabriel stood, ruffled his son’s hair again, and indicated the TV as he passed it. “Turn it off and go to sleep at midnight, and no jacking off on my couch.”

"Dad!"

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV Planet Guvendruduvundraguvnegrugnuvenderelgureg-ugunduvug Guvnuragnaguvendrugun Confederacy, Dominion Core

Once Vedreg had departed, and his shuttle had cleared docking procedures and shot away to superluminal speeds, bound for the Council Station, Secretary Meered did something that, had anybody witnessed it, would have struck them as strange.

She nodded off to sleep in her seat. A few seconds later, she woke, looking around as if thoroughly startled and dismayed.

Flanks rippling like an explosion in a paint factory, she hastily began to check her files, notes and appointments.

Then she stared at the page, wondering why she couldn’t read it. While that problem was occupying her attention, she idly wondered why her entire body was beginning to feel tingly and numb. She felt warm, though, and tired. Whatever it was she had been so… agitated up about could wait until… she yawned… until she’d had a nap…

Half an hour later, her aide’s frantic call to medical came much too late for Secretary Meered. The cause of death was recorded as cerebral infarction.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV San Diego, California, USA, Earth

“Welcome back. How was the East coast?”

“Cold, wet and gray. ”

Seventy-Two had made his position within the Hierarchy through exclusive use of biodrones. A signature technique was necessary - every Number needed a unique angle, something that made them more suitable for certain niches than were their fellows, and the biodrone angle had paid off beautifully in leading to the Earth assignment.

These human ones bothered him somewhat, though. Despite being entirely slaved to his will, they still retained an element of personality, and a tendency towards being talkative, or even garrulous.

Other Numbers may have seen this as a liability, but the humans seemed uniquely capable of spotting a fake in their midst. The first-generation biodrones, the ones that had been truly limited in faculties and personality, had provoked remarkably strong negative reactions among the few humans with whom they had interacted. The “uncanny valley” they called it - if it looked human but didn’t behave enough like one, then it stood out, which was the precise opposite of what a Biodrone was for. The successful newer models had much more mental flexibility, which wasn’t comfortable territory to be in.

That small hiccup aside, all it took to create a biodrone was one human and a little surgery which, thanks to their uniquely sturdy biology, the subject recovered from the operations far more swiftly - and was more likely to survive them - than any other sapient being that Seventy-Two had ever converted that way.. He would have to archive their DNA for future cloning programs.

Still. They weren’t cheap or easy to produce. Losing one to Boone’s ingenuity and paranoia had been painful, and no appropriate specimens for conversion had yet come his way. Being down to only two drones was making it harder and harder to keep pace with humanity’s developments.

It would be time to create a new one, soon.

The biodrone was behaving a little strangely, he noticed. It seemed to be drowsy. Even as he watched, it nodded off on its feet, waking up again after a second with a start.

“Are you malfunctioning?” he asked.

The drone smiled, a little peculiarly.

“Oh no,” it said, and there was a tone of voice there that didn’t belong. Something that was jarringly different to its established modes of behaviour. “I’m better than ever.”

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV

Today was, technically, the first of Gabriel’s two days off a week, but he’d never learned the secret to leaving his work at work, or at least not in the cases that really mattered.

After a breakfast of pancakes and a phone conversation with Mrs. Almodovar, Adam had been granted leave to stay at Gabriel’s apartment for a few days. Given that it was a school day, however, Gabriel had the place to himself for several hours.

By the end of those hours, the table - and the wall around it - were covered in documents and photographs, with sharpied comments, observations, coloured lines, speculation and the fruits of his research and a few phone calls. None of it amounted to a breakthrough.

“Hey Dad! She said… woah.” Adam stopped mid-celebration when he caught sight of the vast spread of information that had sprawled all over the apartment.

“She said yes?” Gabriel finished.

“She did!” Adam looked like he couldn’t believe his luck. “Jeez, Dad, what’s all this?”

“Murder case.” Gabriel told him. Adam picked up a photo from the table - a still of Johnson’s face, from the security cam footage, mercifully not including the victim’s remains.

“This the suspect?” He asked.

“Give me that.” Gabriel snatched it back. “Come on man, you know this stuff’s confidential.”

“Sorry Dad. Seriously though, is that him?”

Gabriel relented. Despite his best efforts to persuade the boy towards a safer and more lucrative career, Adam seemed dead-set on following his old man into law enforcement. He had to admit, the kid had the brain for it. “That’s him.” he confirmed.

Adam glanced at the picture again. “Looks about as average-white-guy as they come.” he opined.

“Yep. Average height, brown hair, brown eyes, no distinguishing features. A face that can disappear in the crowd.” Gabriel agreed. <And into thin air> he added in the privacy of his own mind. The vanishing act Johnson had pulled mid-video was causing him more and more alarm the more he thought about it. Half his day had involved taking a crash course in spacetime distortion physics, and the possible applications of the same reality-folding technology that allowed Pandora and her sisters to fly to Jupiter and back. Some kind of reverse-stasis technology that massively accelerated the murderer’s personal time, allowing him to move so fast as to disappear between frames seemed the most likely explanation, but if he had something like that at his disposal…

Adam continued to stare at the picture, clearly committing it to memory. He had a good memory for faces alright, Gabriel had to give his son that. But Johnson’s was so… generic that unless the kid was memorizing every wrinkle and fleck of white in the beard - and there was no reason to assume that Johnson had retained his beard after a flagrant public murder caught on film - it was a hopeless cause.

“Come on man, she said yes, don’t depress yourself with my work.” Gabriel chastised him, and started to clear it all away. He really should try to relax when he was off-duty anyway. “You’ve got a date!”

“Yeah!” Adam seemed happier than Gabriel had seen him in a long while. “We’re going to see the Derby Dolls on Saturday!”

“Sounds like a good date.” Gabriel told him. “You got anything to wear for it?”

“Not really…” Adam admitted. Gabriel nodded and stood.

“Come on then.” he said. “Let’s hit the mall.”

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV

Mr. Johnson raised his hands and looked at them as if he had never seen them before, and flexed them, balled them into fists and rolled his shoulder. “Strong…” He commented. There was something… off about his intonation. It was hard to describe. Previously the drone had projected an air of competent, contended ready-for-anything-ness. Now it was speaking with an air of… wonder, maybe. Or revelation.

Seventy-Two affected a frown, even though the Corti body wasn’t really equipped for that expression. “What are you doing?” he demanded, impatiently.

The drone grinned. “Your puppet’s been hijacked, Seventy-Two.” he said.

“Hijacked? …Who are you?”.

The grin broadened. “Six.”

“…And you chose a biodrone based on a Deathworlder to host you?" The thought was repugnant. He may control them, but the thought of ever using one as a Host was appalling.

“It was the only available host. Having tried it, however, I wholly recommend it: you should occupy one of these yourself, get out of that cage you’ve put yourself in.” Six replied. “Next to the Guvnurag I was wearing just a few minutes ago, this feels… oh! Liberating.”

He bent over backwards, planted his hands on the floor and kicked up until he was inverted, wobbling slightly, ignoring the way his body’s tie and jacket dangled, undignified, in his face. “So strong!" he exulted.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the input and assistance of a single-digit.” Seventy-two said, speaking with as much tartness as he could muster “but I was under the impression that this is my operation."

“Oh, it is. As far as the Numbers know, the operation on this planet is still being overseen by Seventy-Two. I am here… unofficially.”

"Unofficially?!" Seventy-Two spat the word.

“Officially so.”

If there was one thing a Corti body was well designed for, it was looking nonplussed. If there was one thing that Six seemed to be adept at (besides causing irritation) it was not deigning to notice nonplussed expressions. “Amazing. There are whole trees of autonomic and instinctive functionality in here. The poor things aren’t so much controlling their bodies as prompting it to do something it already knows how to do.”

A memory - a potential behavioural tic that might cause the higher-ranking Hierarch to become a little less obtuse, tickled Seventy-Two’s attention.

“Six… I would appreciate a clearer explanation of what you’re doing here, please.” he asked, politely.

“Certainly!” the mercurial Number flipped right-side up again and sat down, cross-legged. “You only had to ask. I am here because Earth has become priority one, and rather than break with decorum and insult your competence, Two felt that a more… subtle approach was required.”

“Hence you.” Seventy-Two concealed his opinion that there were exploding stars less subtle than Six behind an inflection of polite understanding.

“Supposedly. Why they felt I was appropriately subtle is beyond me..” Six replied, candidly. “Possibly they felt that throwing me at a potential disaster would be a good excuse to finally decompile my identity.”

“We’re not doing that badly down here.” Seventy-two protested.

“The humans outwitted Twenty-Four.” Six corrected him. “They’re flinging themselves into space as fast as they can get the infrastructure in place to do it. They have introduced the galaxy to whole new paradigms of combat.”

He leaned forward, hands dangling loose across his knees. “What we have here, my dear sibling, is a first-degree emergency, and I would have hoped that you would have had the wit to see it, even from down here in the thick of the fighting.”

“…They’re investigating me. Tenaciously, too.” Seventy-Two admitted. “They have government organisations on several tiers, all behaving like that damnably powerful immune system of theirs. They seem willing to believe what must sound utterly incredible to them, and they seem to be completely paranoid.”

“Paranoid?”

“They back up everything, store their data, spread it far and wide so that even if I kill the person who collected it, somebody else is able to continue their work. Silencing the investigator who betrayed us has only served to risk galvanising the investigation. I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

“No? In that case you’re lacking the knowledge of a fundamental component of their psychology, my friend.” Six stood. “And if you don’t know your enemy then failure is inevitable.”

He turned towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Seventy-two demanded. “There’s work to be done!”

“I’m going to know our enemy.” Six replied.

Seventy-Two gritted his teeth, and sent a communication to his last remaining biodrone. He was really going to need those replacements now.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV

“So, I’ve got a question.”

Gabriel glanced sideways at his son. “Shoot.”

“You said yesterday that you’re a cop, and how reading people is your job.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you teach me to do that?”

Gabriel laughed. “Why, so you can tell when a girl is interested in you?”

“Well… yeah!” Adam admitted, blushing. “But, it kinda seems like it’d be a cool thing to know anyway.”

Gabriel sighed internally. He was just furnishing the kid with more of the tools to grow up into a cop like his old man, he knew, but at the same time, knowing how to look at body language and movement was a useful skill for anybody. It could get a young man out of trouble if he could see trouble before it came gunning for him.

“Alright, let’s grab a snack and I’ll teach you a few things.” he said.

They selected coffee and donuts - prompting a predictable joke from Adam about those foodstuffs and Gabriel’s career - and settled in to a corner of the food court where they could see much of what was going on.

“Okay, so… body language.”

He looked around. The mall was fairly busy. Not heaving, but there was a fair density of humanity moving around. It was an excellent introduction. “How many people d’you think are here right now?”

Adam looked around then shrugged. “I dunno… a couple thousand?”

“Yeah, I’d say so.” Gabriel agreed. “How many d’you think are here looking to break the law?”

Adam thought about it then gave him a wide-eyed, head-shaking shrug.

“Damn near none of them.” Gabriel informed him. “Pretty much everybody here is just here to shop, buy stuff, go home, live their lives. Most people are decent human beings, okay? So what you’re looking out for is the handful who aren’t.”

“Okay. How?”

“Two things. The first part is profiling - what’s the crime that’s most likely to be committed where you are, and what type of person is most likely to commit it? That changes depending on where you are, and when. Here and now, the most likely crime is…?”

“Shoplifting.”

“Right! And that’s tricky because the profile for shoplifters is pretty vague. Men and women shoplift about equally, they do it on the spur of the moment… about the only thing you can look out for is groups of teenagers, kids about your age. Peer pressure makes them do stupid shit, you know?”

“Yeah…”

Gabriel guessed that his son knew a few kids at school who had admitted to, or even boasted about, the crime. There wasn’t much that could be done about it, and you had to let SOME stuff go or you’d never switch off.

“So you have to look out for the warning signs after the crime has been committed," he continued, pretending not to have noticed the hesitation “and that means you have to look for anyone who’s moving strangely.”

“Like how?”

“You just have to… watch people. Get a feel for how they normally move in this environment. Are they relaxed, are they tense, are they bored, eager, happy? This is a shopping mall, so most of the people here are moving kinda slow, they’re looking around at the advertisements, they’re window-browsing. Yeah?”

Adam was looking around at the crowd, and nodded. “Okay, yeah.”

“Right. So now you’ve got an idea of how people should be moving around here, you can basically ignore all those people. They’re behaving how they should be, so they’re probably not up to anything. Look for the people who aren’t moving that way."

Adam looked around then, pointed. “Him.”

“Yep. He’s walking fast, he’s not got any bags, he’s not looking around. So now you look at his face. What’s his expression?”

“He doesn’t really have one. I guess… bored?”

“Alright. No expression means he’s pretty comfortable, he’s not feeling tense or paranoid, or anything. So my guess is he knows exactly what he’s here for and he just wants to grab it and go and not waste time. He’s got better things to be doing. If I’m right then he’s not a problem.”

Adam frowned. “What if you’re wrong?” he asked

“Then I’m wrong. But like we said, round here the most likely crime is shoplifting, so it’s not like somebody could die if I fuck up. I’ve got a lot of people to look at so I have to trust my judgement. I can’t be suspicious of everyone just because I could be wrong."

Adam nodded his understanding. “Okay, so you look at how they move, then at their expression. What next?”

“That’s about it.” Gabriel said. His son’s expression turned dubious. “No, seriously, check the movement, check the expression. You have to learn to see the crowd as a bunch of moving abstract shapes and pick out the motion that’s wrong. Too fast, too slow, too jerky, aimed in the wrong direction… once you’ve done that, you look at the face, the shoulders and feet, trying to figure out if they’re feeling comfortable or not. If they’re moving wrong but look comfortable, then you ignore them. If they’re looking uncomfortable… well, that could still be a mom whose kid’s trying to swim in the fountain, so that’s why you observe them for a bit, try to figure out what’s going on with them.”

“That’s all there is to it, then?” Adam asked. “Sounds…”

“Unreliable as hell?” Gabriel finished for him. Adam looked like he wanted to agree, so he nodded. “Yep. it’s really only good for spotting the guys who really stand out, but those are the ones you most want to spot, so it works. Getting better at it is just practice."

Adam nodded distractedly and frowned at the crowd, clearly trying to practice what he’d just been told. Gabriel suppressed an amused snort and drained his coffee. “Anyway, you wanna get that shirt now?”

“Sure”.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 3d AV

Sights. Sounds. Smells. All so much more acute, all interlinking in fascinating ways. This was how a human viewed the world, a melange of sensory data all arriving at once, sending chemicals dancing and whirling through that intricate, dense neocortex. Six explored on foot, testing and analyzing the way his adopted body could just be aimed in a direction and set to travelling, how the very act of covering the distance one step at a time seemed to free and expand the mind.

Isolated as the core of his consciousness and sense of self were, running on the implants which riddled the alien body’s neural structure, he still felt it. Still felt the glow of endorphins even as the muscles of his new legs warmed and stretched: it was a surprisingly comfortable feeling, a kind of pleasant pain: the body revelled in motion even as that motion tested and taxed it.

There was so much to see. By day he wandered in the shade of the buildings of Downtown, occasionally venturing into the full glare of Sol’s ultraviolet- heavy radiance on the waterfront. He patiently explored the USS Midway museum, drank in the raw data of the antiquated vessel’s role and functionality, mentally noting to retain and use some of the innovative ideas that had gone into its construction. As dusk fell and the burning heat became a gentle ruddy warmness, he walked on the beach and indulged his hijacked flesh’s unaccountable instinct to remove its footwear.

It wasn’t like controlling the bodies of other lifeforms. Everything ran on instinct, everything was handled locally by independent systems that didn’t consult him at all, they just acted on a hair-trigger before finally bothering to inform him after the fact. He got some strange looks as he passed a series of females who wore practically nothing, lost in thought at the curious reaction they had - quite unbidden - inspired in his male body’s genitalia. Why should he have inherited human taboos and preferences?

As night fell, his feet carried him through Gaslamp, where he finally came to understand what the term “night-life” meant. Every shadow seemed to hum with some secret or another. Every single person he passed, even just as unconsidered blurs on the sidewalk, seemed to have a vital spark to them - they were going somewhere, they were doing things, for a reason.

His hijacked body’s instincts swung into gear - that group of males over there were large and boisterous, a potential threat: Avoid them. That alleyway was dark: Don’t go down it. That building over there was an oasis of warmth and light, from which issued smells and sounds that spoke to several parts of his body at once.

His stomach issued a strange noise, and he allowed his feet to carry him toward the bar and grill.

He was fortunate, he realised, to have done his research on how to pay for goods and services on this planet.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV “I was expecting you to have a hangover.” Seventy-Two commented.

“You have a low opinion of me.” Six replied. He’d sampled intoxication - he hadn’t cared for it. Possibly that was a product of the inherent disconnect between his sense of identity, cloistered away in the cerebral implants, and the rest of the brain, but the experience had been frustrating - a loss of both agility and sensory acuity, for no apparent gain. The effects had dissipated after a few hours, leaving him resolved to not do it again.

The tastes of the food he had sampled, however, were sharp and pleasant memories. He had eaten meat for the first time, sampling the flesh of once- animal life: unfamiliar textures had seduced his palate - rare steak, chicken caesar, frankfurter, cheese!

“So do you know our enemy yet?” Seventy-Two inquired, not bothering to conceal his disdain.

“More than I did.” Six allowed. “There are a few more things to see tonight before I begin my work.”

“And once you’ve learned it all? What then?”

“I have already learned that I cannot learn it all. This is just one city, a paltry million-and-a-half individuals. There is a whole planet out there filled by more than seven billion humans; I don’t have the time to sample everything on offer."

He grinned again. “But I have learned a lot already. About how they think, about what drives them, about the way in which they experience the world. The weaknesses are revealing themselves.”

“And how do we exploit those weaknesses?”

“First, an experiment.”

“I see.” Seventy-two sounded dubious. “And what will this ‘experiment’ of yours entail?”

Six sat down. “I learned an expression of theirs last night. They say: ‘poking the hornet’s nest’.”

“I’m familiar with it. It’s an allegory for doing something very foolish.”

“All data points arrive from doing something ostensibly foolish.” Six replied. “We’ll need to sacrifice your last biodrone.”

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

Adam had followed up his Dad’s insight into how to crowd-watch with some Internet research of his own, and felt he was starting to get the hang of the skill. He’d also done some research on how to have a good first date. Arriving early at Skateworld allowed him to accomplish both.

After a few minutes, he got into a rhythm, watching people come and go not as people but as shapes, moving. He got a feel for HOW they were moving, where and why. It was a pleasant surprise to him when he noticed one shape start to move differently, turning towards him and picking up speed and bounce…

“Hey!”

Adam jolted out of his thoughts, but smiled warmly as Ava trotted up to him, beaming from ear to ear. He felt his face warm as she kissed him hello.

“This was a great idea, I was going to say we should watch a movie or something.” she enthused.

Adam laughed slightly. “My Dad told me that’d just be two hours of sitting in the dark ignoring each other.” he confessed. “I’d rather see you and talk to you.”

After he’d said it, the fear struck him that the line was corny and over-the- top, but Ava seemed to take it very well - she blushed and bounced happily in her shoes, then took his hand and led him towards the entrance.

Adam allowed himself to be led, secretly amazed at how well things were going. <maybe this isn’t so difficult after all…>

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

The Biodrone waited. The order would soon come.

In a lot of ways, it was still human. While it lacked anything resembling a sense of self-interest or an agenda of its own, it still had its emotional responses, and something which might be considered a personality.

It had, for lack of a better word, liked its counterparts. Both the one that was destroyed and the one which was now occupied by a Controller. It felt, to some limited degree, a sense of loss and grief over their destruction.

It felt similarly about its own imminent destruction. Had it been asked, it would have preferred not to do what it was about to do.

But it had not been asked. That was not its Role. It had been tasked, and it would do. And it would die.

But for now, it waited.

Most of it did not want to die. Part of it - the last imprisoned vestiges of this body’s former psyche - did. But even they did not want to escape into death’s clutches like this.

Not taking so many with them. Not murdering innocents.

But the biodrone waited. The order would soon come.

And it would do. And it would die.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

Ava had insisted that, because Adam had paid for the tickets, she would pay for the snacks and drinks, and in any case she needed the restroom, and had left him alone to guard their stuff and their seats while the pre-game was still going on. The teams were being announced in a flurry of girly-macho pseudonyms: “Kitty Crash”, “Victoria van Boom”, “EradiKate” and so on that he’d never remember anyway, so he fell back into playing his crowd-watching game.

That lady over there… worried for her kid standing on the rail. That guy over there… no, he was just after his cellphone. That lady over there was running, but… no, she just settled into her seat with a smile, sharing a lively greeting and a hug-and-double-cheek-kiss with her friend. That guy over there… was…

“Oh shit." He swore.

Nobody else could be so… average, so bland. It was almost a defining trait in its own right. If he hadn’t been walking too slowly, looking around at the crowd rather than down at the players, if he hadn’t been jigging slowly as he moved, as if anticipating something, Adam’s eyes would have skipped straight over the guy. As it was, the anomalous movement and attitude drew his eye, and his memory did the rest.

He feverishly dug in his jeans pocket for his own phone, just as Ava returned.

“Okay, I’m… what’s up?” she asked, sensing his urgency.

“I recognised somebody.” Adam said, quietly.

“Anyone I know?” she asked, looking out over the crowd. Her own eyes skipped straight over the guy.

“He’s the suspect in a murder case Dad’s working!” he hissed. “Sit down!”

She did so, paling. Adam retrieved his phone and stood, managing to snap a great picture of John Doe’s face under the pretense of taking a selfie.

He sat again, and tapped furiously at the screen - “this guy @ derby!” - and forwarded it to his Dad’s number.

“What do we do?” Ava asked. “Do we call the cops, or…?”

“I just did.” Adam said. “I really hope I’m wrong."

She took his hand, manicured fingers intertwining with his own. It made him feel a little better, a little less afraid.

He knew he wasn’t wrong.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

+<Impatience; Derision> I really don’t see what this accomplishes.+

Six was gaining increased control over his human body, and managed to avoid allowing a tic of irritation to cross his face. Not that he felt it would blow his cover, but ideally he would prefer to go completely unnoticed, rather than be remembered as the strange man in the crowd making faces for no apparent reason.

+<Weary tolerance> Seventy-Two, I have been a single-digit Number since before you were compiled. I have played my part in the cleansing of five deathworlds before this one. The only reason I’m not ordering you to shut up and stop repeating your doubt is because I hate standing on rank. I just ask - please - that you trust that I know what I’m doing.+

There was no reply for a few minutes, buying him the time to show his ticket, enter the venue, find his assigned seat and look around with interest at the gathered crowd, most of whom were holding up their phones and cameras, getting snapshots to bleat at each other about where they were and what they were doing.

He sat down when 72 intruded on his thoughts again. +<resignation; frustration> Very well. I trust your judgment. I just ask that you please share some of your reasoning with me.+

+<Satisfaction> You only had to ask.+

He paused to gather his thoughts, thinking how best to explain it to the much junior Number.

+<Mentoring> Despite our late alert to just how far along the humans were, we still established our presence on this planet sufficiently early that the usual strategy of engineering a large-scale exchange of nuclear armaments should have worked. There was no reason for it not to.+

+<Skeptical> If you say so.+

Six smiled. Two groups of human females had assembled on the open floor below, wearing coloured clothing to indicate their team, plus some light impact- resistant armour to protect their joints and head, and curious wheeled shoes. He wondered idly what the rules of the game were.

+<Assertive> I do say so. The failure of the strategy implies that there is some self-correcting element in the human psyche which compensates for the usual aggression of the deathworlder mindset. They are capable of being presented with an existential threat and choosing NOT to attack it, out of longer-term self interest.+

The teams set up - a huddle of eight players, four from each team, blocking the path of the two in the back wearing a starred cover on their helmets.

Seventy-Two still wasn’t persuaded. +<Dismissive> So they’re not stupid. You’ve not explained what that has to do with wasting my last biodrone on this suicide mission.+

+<Explanatory> Their behaviour in a small crisis may shed light on their probable reaction to a larger one. By observing the former, I intend to gain insight into possible avenues of attack which we can exploit to eradicate them.+

A whistle blew, and the two players with stars on their helmets launched themselves forward, battling to get past the players in front. It was all remarkably physical, the players forcing one another off-balance and restraining one another with force that would have crippled or killed most life forms. Even as he watched, one of the starred players fell and slid some way on her back, her helmeted skull bouncing against the hard polished concrete floor. It was a serious blow, but she bounced back to her feet and threw herself into the fray again as if it was routine.

+<defeat> I can’t find fault with your reasoning. I just hope this pays off with useful intelligence.+

+<confidence> It will.+

There was no reply. The crowd emitted a delighted noise as one of the starred players broke free and accelerated around the oval track before diving straight back into the scrum she had so recently escaped. This time, with speed on her side she skipped through the pack and out the far side, at one point teetering on one wheeled foot on the very precipice of the track. The other starred player broke loose and gave chase, prompting the first one to dodge three more of the other team before patting her flanks three times, prompting a whistle to sound.

Eight points were awarded, and Six leant forward, interested to figure out the rules of this bellicose game before it went extinct along with the species that invented it.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

Adam’s phone pinged after a tense two minutes.

The message from Dad read simply: “It’s him GTFO dont alert crowd: panic even more dngrs.”

Ava read the message, looked at his expression, and thank Christ, decided not to argue. She just stood with him and followed him out of the stands, down the stairs, and into the street, silent, pale and tense.

“What now?” Ava asked. “I mean, we just left all those people in there…”

“Dad said not to alarm them.” Adam said. “The cops’ll keep them safe.”

“I hope so.” she folded her arms low across her tummy, hunched and stressed. Adam didn’t even think twice - he drew her in for a hug.

He looked at his phone as it pinged again. The message just read: "Proud of you. Love you. Stay safe."

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

Seventy-two would have truly preferred to keep his last drone intact, but Six’s superior rank - even if the older Number preferred not to rely on it, carried all the weight it needed to.

Still, it was good that the arrogant Hierarch had shut up for the time being. It allowed Seventy-Two time to think and prepare some contingencies that *might * - with luck - mean they got to keep the biodrone after all.

His hopes of that were dashed when Six’s impatient mental tones cut into his planning. +<query> What is the biodrone’s ETA?+

+<Report> It has arrived. Retrieving the weapon from the vehicle’s cargo compartment now.+

This was, technically, a small lie - the drone had been sitting in the car park for a few minutes awaiting the go signal while 72 desperately tried to work a survival scenario that would allow him to retain his last precious drone. Annoyed and resigned, he wrote the thing off. Six would just have to acquire the raw material to create the replacements himself, being the last remaining ambulatory part of the operation.

+<Satisfaction> Good. Remember to instruct it not to shoot into the section where I’m sitting.+

72 couldn’t resist ironically echoing Six’s own words back at him. _<_Patient request*> I just ask - please - that you trust that I know what I’m doing.+

This was met with silence.

One of his watcher programs flashed up possibly relevant activity. He had snuck the virus into the San Diego PD dispatch system years ago: it was in its own way a little bit sapient, and could creatively interpret the flow of data inside the law enforcement information networks, looking for relevant or useful information.

He allowed the information to be injected into his consciousness as he worked at getting the drone into the building undetected so that it could “poke the hornet’s nest” as Six had ordered.

"Dispatch, Eight-one-niner, I have a tipoff on a suspect wanted for multiple violent felonies. He’s at Skateworld, Linda Vista and Comstock, please advise."

Disbelief was the only conceivable response. There was no possible way that Six’s biodrone could have been recognised, it was designed to be utterly anonymous. The things vanished in crowded areas. Its social stealth should have been perfect.

He ordered the armed Biodrone to abort its assault on the building, and listened.

"Eight-one-niner, Dispatch, is the sighting confirmed?"

"Dispatch, Eight-one-niner, positive ID, this guy’s wanted for multiple homicide and domestic terrorism, could be a mass shooting about to start over there, request special tactics."

Special tactics. What, exactly, that meant was not known to Seventy-Two, but there was no point sending in the biodrone now - it would surely be intercepted and destroyed without accomplishing anything more than they already had.

In fact, now he thought about it, this was exactly the kind of response that Six had intended to elicit. That it was arriving before anything even started was… very troubling, but…

“*Eight-one-niner, Dispatch, be advised, special tactics is enroute, creating talk group with their captain.”

For the first time since he had arrived on Earth, Seventy-Two understood the urge to swear, and spoke aloud: “Feces!”

He followed that declaration with an urgent transmission to Six. +<Alarm; disbelief> Armed response units will be converging on your location imminently. Abort.+

+<Incredulity> That’s impossible, nothing’s happened yet.+

+<Firm assertion> I’m listening to their communications. Abort.+

+<Reluctant acknowledgment> Aborting.+

+<firm> I’ve withdrawn the assault unit, too. I think we have all the information you need.+

+<Worried> I think you’re right…+

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

“Suspect’s a white male, late thirties to early forties, brown hair and full beard, wearing a charcoal suit and red tie.”

Gabriel gritted his teeth as Jimmy Rowan took a chance turning right at an intersection without properly stopping to check it. It earned a few honks, but it gained a few seconds, and didn’t need him to hit the siren. The closer they could get without making that noise, the better their hopes that “Johnson” would still be in place when they arrived.

The Special Tactics team was well ahead of him. Copy that. We’re going in plain clothes, tag him, tranq him, side room and search. Do it right and nobody needs to know."

Gabriel keyed his radio again as a red light mercifully turned green just in time.

“Be warned, he’s suspect in a bombing on the East Coast, could be wearing a vest.” he advised.

"We’ve got bomb squad." the SWAT captain reassured him. "ETA one minute"

Dispatch’s voice cut into the conversation again. "Responding units, be advised we have report on a possible second shooter, loitering in the car park. Caller says she saw him get a rifle out of the trunk."

The SWAT captain’s reply was terse. "Copy, Dispatch."

There was nothing for it but to let Jimmy drive, and to pray.

Please God let my son be safe…

He tapped the voice recognition on his phone, and shouted at it over the sound of his howling engine. “Call Agent Hamilton!” he instructed.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

Six’s escape had been planned down to the finest detail on the assumption that nobody could spot him if he was part of a mob of panicked civilians fleeing a massacre.

He wasn’t prepared to just… leave, to abort the mission. That wasn’t a scenario that had been deemed possible.

+<Anxiety; stress> HOW?! Can they predict the future or something?+ he demanded over the thought-link.

+<reassuring; tense> Don’t be ridiculous.+

+<Gnawing fear> But they have a word for it! "Clairvoyance“! Why would they have a word for something like that if they couldn’t do it?+

+<Firm command> You are panicking. Just get out of there and we will determine how this is possible once you are safe.+

People were bustling this way and that: he flinched nervously away from them, kept his face bowed, tried to escape unseen. He brushed past a muscular male in a jacket and hat, ignoring off the man’s “watch it, buddy” as he turned his face away and walked as fast as he dared towards the exit.

Nobody challenged him as he stepped outside and breathed a sigh of relief. Out on the street, the anonymity of his biodrone body would protect him.

Something dense, hard, and fleshy hit him from the side - he didn’t hear it coming, there was no flash of movement in his peripheral vision. There was just the pain of his face against the asphalt, the discomfort of his limbs being restrained, a piercing pain as something violated his assumed skin, and then the world melted away into dreams and timeless nonsense.

In the dark, the component modules of his personality were left to scream and rage within the separate prisons of the implants that sustained them.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

The situation was changing faster than Seventy-Two could cope. There was too much to juggle, too many unknown factors. Six’s line had gone dark, threats were everywhere, none of them properly identified.

The biodrone’s orders were to retreat, and so it retreated along the preplanned route. It did not mind the conflicting orders, it simply obeyed the most recent one.

There were two armed threats in the way. Its orders included self-preservation and evading capture. It opened fire.

Return fire cut it down.

For only the second time in his life, Seventy-Two swore.

Date Point 3y 8m 2w 4d AV

“Adam!”

“Dad!”

Gabriel Ares barrelled into his son at speed and drew him into a bear-hug.

“What’s going on?” Adam asked.

“SWAT’s inside, they’re going for a low-profile capture.” Gabriel replied. “But there’s a second gunman about the place we need to get-”

There was a thumping sound, and something hot and wet splattered Adam’s face.

Gabriel frowned at him. “Your face…?”

There were gunshots. Ava started screaming.

Jimmy lowered his gun. “Holy fuck did you see-” he began, then his expression changed as Gabriel fell to the ground.

"Shit! Dispatch, need an ambulance west side of Skateworld ASAP! Officer down, officer down!"

Chapter 18
Chapter 15: “Forever Changed” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Date point: ??? AV

Classified Facility, Earth

There was a change in the texture of nothingness, a return of some of the functionality of his body. Six wasted no time in extending his sense of self outwards from its cloistered life inside the implants, and into the meat he was wearing.

It was, surprisingly, not too bad. His mouth was dry, and his head ached a little, but he awoke to find himself lying - clean, clothed and dignified - on a bed.

It wasn’t exactly a comfortable bed, but nor was it torturously hard. It was just a simple mattress, with a pillow-shaped raised bit at one end in lieu of an actual pillow, and a blanket. It was the sole feature of a plain grey room, other than a door which looked, if anything, even more solid than the walls around it, and a sturdy yellowish light panel in the ceiling. There wasn’t even a window.

He sat up, enjoying the feeling of his limbs moving again, appreciating the way they reported none of the discomfort he had felt when last conscious and pinned face-down to the San Diego sidewalk.

His link to 72 was dead. The micro-wormhole connecting him to the Hierarchy had, somehow, closed itself. Wherever he was, it was at the very bottom of a communications black hole.

No matter. Unexpected complications or not, the mission remained the same: gather information. Something would, presumably, be happening soon. He would record it, he would remember it, he would find a means of escape, and rather than being a disaster, his hive-poking would turn out to be a triumph.

For now, he sat, and waited.

He didn’t need to wait long. Though there were no obvious sensors or cameras in the cell, pretty soon there was a sliding sound - a panel had opened about eye level on his door. It shut immediately afterwards, and was followed by a second, larger hatch at about waist height, through which was thrust a tray.

The smell wafting off it immediately reminded him that he was hungry. Unbidden, his stomach emitted that peculiar growling sound again, and his mouth went into overdrive, salivary glands anticipating the arrival of food.

It turned out to be quite bland fare next to his last meal of just a few days ago. Some white substance, like a dry… gel, almost, or paste. Its taste was pleasant but simple. The chunky brown-white fluid in a separate compartment went well with it, and also with the brownish crumbly item. There was certainly nothing to complain about there, but it wasn’t a patch on the steak and burgers he had so recently eaten.

But then again, what did he expect as a prisoner? In truth, he would have expected far worse than this. A comfortable bed in a clean, dry and warm cell? A filling hot meal and a tall container of cold water? It was a conundrum.

He was still puzzling over this peculiarity when there was a banging on the door, which opened. Three humans stood without, holding blunt black weapons.

Ah. THIS was more like it. A beating. This was closer to what he had expected.

The human in the middle spoke to him. “Detainee, please face the far wall.” He instructed. “Crouch on your knees, place your hands on your head and interlock your fingers.”

“And if I don’t?” Six challenged. He could handle a beating. This… nice treatment was getting to him.

“Detainee, please comply. We will be forceful if we must.”

There was that word again. “Please”. It seemed so strange to have the armed guards address him politely and respectfully, even if they were being impersonal.

He glanced at the far wall, wondering if he should just comply and see what awaited him if he did. After all, why go through all that pain unnecessarily?

The guard spoke again. “Detainee, this is your final warning. Your compliance is mandatory for everyone’s safety, including yours.”

So. No beating. They’d just restrain him and… what, take him somewhere? Either way, there was no point in suffering the inconvenience.

“Fine. I comply.” he said, turning to the wall and kneeling. The guards stepped into the room.

“Hands on your head and fingers interlaced please, detainee.”

Six obeyed.

There was an efficient bustle of movement. His hands and feet were bound with metal, though from the looseness at the ankles he would be able to shuffle a walk. Something dark went over his eyes, something soft over his ears. His world became a purely tactile one, full of no sensation but the hard floor under his knees, the weight on his limbs. Strong hands lifted him to his feet, and he could sense - he wasn’t sure how, but his body reported certainty of the fact - that two of the guards moved into position near him, guiding him with physical contact, pushing him forwards just enough to get the message across that he should be walking. As predicted, he couldn’t hit any kind of a stride, but he was able to walk after a shuffling, slow fashion.

Six tried to judge the route as they left the cell, but quickly gave up. There were so many turns and he was spun around a few times at some points, completely throwing any attempt to track where he was or how far he had gone. For all he knew they could have walked past his cell door five times before he heard - faintly, through the stuff on his head - the sound of a door.

A chair was bumped gently against the back of his knees, and those same hands that had guided him for the last few minutes helped him sit down. There were a few tugging sensations, and sound and light returned in a rush, making him blink and grimace.

“Hello.”

The greeter was seated opposite him, smiling faintly as the handlers filed out of the room. It wasn’t a large room - in fact it was just the two chairs, a desk, and a conspicuous camera mounted on the ceiling. The only features on the desk where a small laptop, turned towards the human so that Six couldn’t see the screen, and a slim paper dossier and pen.

“My name’s Stephen, I’ve been assigned to your case.” the man opposite him continued. “My goal here is to learn as much as I can about you and your associates, but before we begin… Have you been fed well? Are you comfortable enough?”

This was not, Six thought, how an interrogation should go.

Date Point 3y 8m 3w AV

Something was very wrong in the life of Adam Ares.

He’d never realised before just how small his Dad was. In fact, Adam had stood taller than his old man for a couple of years, but he’d always seemed large to Adam.

Now, wrapped up in hospital gown and blankets and violating tubes as he was, that illusion was shattered. Gabriel was a small man, but not a frail man. Not usually. Right now, though…

That alone felt like a crippling loss, and he thanked Jesus Christ and all the angels that it was the only loss he’d endured. Gabriel was, miraculously, very much still alive, and according to the doctors recovering nice and strong. The bullet had entered in the small of the back, bounced off a vertebra, obliterated a kidney and exited through the flank, leaving behind bruising of the lumbar spinal cord and a badly perforated bowel but - crucially - it had missed the renal artery. By which small grace, Gabriel’s life had been saved.

They hadn’t let him stay. He hadn’t been there when Gabriel had first woken up. He hadn’t even been able to visit until after a shouting match with his Mom and a heated phone call with Mrs. Almodovar.

But he’d finally been able to visit, and now…

Gabriel shifted, then woke. He blinked at his son, confused for a second, and then smiled. “Hey, Amigo."

Adam gave up on trying to be manly. He threw himself forward and felt Gabriel bring his free arm - the one without an IV drip in - up and around to hug him, albeit with a grunt of pain.

“Sorry…” Adam muttered.

“It’s okay.”

“Jesus Christ, Dad, I thought…" Adam couldn’t even say it, it just made the tears hurt more as they forced themselves out. “I thought…”

“I know. I’m sorry little man, I dropped the ball. I should have been keeping an eye out.”

A laugh forced its way out between the sobs. “Yeah, you’d better be!”

There was a minute’s silence, and then Adam pulled away, wiping his eyes. “Shit, Dad, please don’t ever do that to me again.”

Gabriel smiled, but sobered. “From what the doctors are telling me, I might be taking early retirement.” he said. “Between the kidney and my spine…”

Adam’s eyes widened. “You’re gonna be able to walk aren’t you?”

“Four out of five.” Gabriel promised. “Or so Doctor Boylan says. I heard it’s all about willpower, so I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be in a wheelchair. But pretty sure I’m never passing physical again so…” he shrugged. “Guess that was my career. It’s okay, I’ve got plenty saved up and invested.”

“You love your job, though.” Adam said.

“Yeah. But it’s just a job, Amigo. There’s more important things."

Gabriel ruffled his son’s hair, then sat back. “Shit, I get tired quick.” he complained.

“It’s okay. I… Ava and I are having another go at dating tonight, I should get ready.”

Gabriel smiled. “Good for you, man…” he said, closing his eyes.

“Yeah. Hopefully it’ll go better this time.”

Gabriel chuckled, then yawned. “Yeah. Pretty sure dates aren’t s’posed to have… shooting…” he mumbled.

Adam let him fall asleep, then let himself out.

Date point: ??? AV

Classified Facility, Earth

“Um… yes. Thank you, I’m quite comfortable.” Six admitted. It was true, in fact: the seat was cushioned and ergonomic, and he felt perfectly fine sitting upon it.

“Good to know.” Stephen replied. “So… I’m going to start this interview now. Could you please tell me your name?”

“Mr. Johnson.” Six replied, promptly. That particular feature of the drone’s cover was hardwired into the same implants that now hosted his personality.

Stephen nodded. “I was hoping for your full name.” he said softly, drumming his fingers on the table. The combination of the drumming and Stephen’s mild tones did something very strange to Six - the sounds were actually pleasant, in a way that he had never encountered before. He shook it off and focused on the task at hand. This was still an interrogation, however alien it might be, and Six had five hundred thousand years of experience to draw on to help him. A human who wasn’t even an infant relative to that lifetime wasn’t going to get the better of him just by being nice.

“I don’t know your full name." he pointed out.

“True. I’m Moore, Stephen Moore.”

“Thank you.” Six said, but didn’t reveal his cover’s first name, although this was in large part due to the cover not having been assigned a fixed first name. He remained silent as he rifled through the biodrone’s past mission history in search of the most recently used first name.

“Okay, if you don’t feel like sharing yet, that’s fine.” Stephen said. He tapped on the keyboard of the laptop in front of him, and the gentle tapping, clicking noises the keys made as they were depressed again elicited that same strange pleasantness in Six’s head. It felt… relaxing, warm, comfortable.

He immediately stiffened. What if he was under the influence of some kind of drug? Humans were particularly susceptible to hallucinogens and similar substances, perhaps that meal had been full of some kind of compound that would open him up to speaking the truth.

The stiffening attracted Stephen’s attention. “Is everything alright?” he asked.

“What was in that food I ate?” Six demanded.

“Uhmmm.. mashed potato, biscuits and gravy, peas and carrots.” Stephen replied, after checking his notes. “Why?”

Six was an inexpert reader of human expressions and body language, even with the aid of the specialist subroutines that lurked deep inside any translator implant, but there was no mistaking the honest curiosity in his interrogator’s reaction. It implied that either the food had not been drugged, or - less likely - that Stephen did not know about it.

Perhaps the sensation was just another symptom of human strangeness, one to which he had not hitherto been exposed. He didn’t know. For now, it was safest to withhold his suspicions rather than voice them and out himself as nonhuman. If the reaction was perfectly normal and he commented on it as if it weren’t, then he would have blundered.

“I’m…” he thought how best to make an excuse. “…I was expecting something less pleasant.”

Stephen nodded. “I understand. But we’re professionals here, we don’t do that kind of thing. You have my solemn promise that you’re perfectly safe.”

“That seems… counter-intuitive.” Six told him.

“Perhaps. We’re interested in information, and a peaceful resolution. That’s the first and most important priority. As for you, your person and rights are protected by…” here, Stephen paused and thought for a second, “Oh, a whole mess of laws, which we’re not interested in breaking. It’s better for everyone that they remain unbroken.”

“How noble.” Six scoffed. “Or maybe you’re just trying to get me to relax so you can catch me off-guard.”

Stephen inclined his head. “Is that what you’d do?” he asked.

Six didn’t answer, and after a few seconds Stephen shrugged. He typed something on the laptop in front of him, letting the silence slide.

“Shall we move on to the actual questions?” he asked. “What’s your name again?”

“Mr.” Six emphasised the word “Johnson.”

“Still no first name?”

“No.”

“Not, for instance, Edward? That’s the name you used on your flights to and from New York.”

Unbidden, a detail from the biodrone’s most recent mission surfaced. Yes. Edward.

“…Edward Johnson.”

“Thank you.” Stephen tapped on his laptop again. “But is that your real name?”

Six sneered at him “Of course it is.”

Stephen gave an uncomfortable little grimace. “So, why did you rent a car under the name Paul Johnson a few weeks prior? Why is the name on your apartment’s lease Mr. Richard Johnson?”

He smiled. “Most people don’t change their name as often as they change their jeans.”

They sat in silence for a minute, with Stephen just staring at him, giving Six time to think. There was, he realised, simply no way to maintain the facade of being Mr. Johnson. The damnable drone’s recall was too disconnected from his control, the details of its cover too vague, too hard to retrieve on short notice. A change of tack was in order. He would stick to what he himself knew, without relying on the drone.

“Call me… Six.” he said, finally. It wasn’t like the simple number would reveal anything.

“Six. Fair enough. Thank you.”

Six only stared at him, awaiting the next question.

“Okay, Six… you’re not human, are you?”

Date Point: 3y 8m 3w AV

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada.

♫♪There’s just an illusion of something different / the very reason they keep telling you something’s missing / but whatever it is you won’t get from…♪♫

“Y-hello?”

"Jenkins, it’s Tremblay."

Kevin yawned and sat up. “Morning, General.” He squinted at the glowing numbers in the dark. “Dude, it’s like oh-five-thirty.”

"Yeah, well, ET intel consultant’s a job that puts you permanently on call, eh? I’ve got some fine gentlemen from down south want a word with you, AND a priority message from the colony. Grab some of that wonder coffee you make and get up here."

The advice to make himself a coffee was sensible on two levels: even if he hadn’t needed to drum up some alertness and drive away the effects of inadequate sleep, it was five-thirty in a winter’s morning in British Columbia. Next to his native Austin, he may as well be above the arctic circle, and three years hadn’t yet served to acclimatize him to the cold. The little disposable cup of triple-strength Mocha served to keep his fingers warm as he grumbled a path through the snow.

A helicopter added to his misery as it came in low overhead while he was passing the security checks to get into the base’s command building, kicking up a blizzard that even made the Quebecois guard flinch inside his greatcoat. Getting inside the heated complex of offices and briefing rooms was heaven.

He knew the way to Tremblay’s office by heart, but as ever there was an escort. Even three years as a civilian contractor and consultant didn’t buy the freedom to walk the base unescorted.

Fortunately, the guard was known to him, and they swapped some small-talk on the way up.

Tremblay’s office was verging on being crowded, occupied as it was by the man himself - looking, Kevin was pleased to note, just as groggy and dishevelled as he felt - plus another CA general, this one with the little crown above his crossed sabers that indicated a Lieutenant-general, superior to Tremblay’s own rank of Brigadier-General, and four men in suits.

“Who’s this then?” the senior officer asked as he entered. He looked disgustingly alert and well-groomed.

“Major-General Paul Rutherford - Kevin Jenkins.” Tremblay introduced. “Our ET intel consultant.”

“I know you!” Rutherford exclaimed. “You were the one in that interview that got all the ETs so shit-scared way back.”

Kevin grimaced and nodded. “Yeah, that was me.”

“You said some rather nasty things about your own species there, Jenkins.” Rutherford pressed, earning him Kevin’s best cool stare. It lasted for several seconds.

“When I said those things, I meant every word.” he said. “Still do, too. And from the looks of things, history has proven me goddamn well right.”

Rutherford snorted, and looked at Tremblay. “You were right Martin, he’s a dick.” he said.

Tremblay’s glance shot around the room as Kevin raised an eyebrow at him, and he cleared his throat. “Commander Higgins and Group Captain Temba here are with MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service.” he said. “Agents Hamilton and Williams here are CIA, and Lieutenant Leclerc behind you is with our own CSIS.”

Jenkins turned around. Leclerc was a tiny woman whose feet weren’t even touching the floor as she sat behind the door, watching and listening. She gave him a faint smile.

“I assume you have some ET intel you want me to consult on?” He asked, settling in the last remaining seat after dragging it away from Tremblay’s desk and turning it around so he could straddle it.

“Before we begin, I want to make it clear that this meeting is classified and its content is Need-To-Know only, under all the relevant laws of, and treaties between, our respective governments. If you don’t accept that, then get out.” Rutherford said. He fixed Kevin with an especially challenging glare, and seemed only grudgingly satisfied when Kevin nodded his understanding and acceptance. This was far from being the first classified meeting he’d attended. “…Martin?

Tremblay just extended an open-palmed hand, inviting the CIA agents to speak first. Williams stood, and the lights dimmed as she turned on the projector.

“Five days ago we apprehended this man in San Diego.” She said. The slide showed a bearded, brown-haired man of indeterminate age and nondescript features. “An accomplice - ” the slide was of somebody who looked effectively identical " - was gunned down after badly wounding San Diego PD homicide detective Gabriel Ares."

“Ares? Shit!” Kevin ignored the disapproving looks his interruption garnered. “Is he okay?”

“He’s recovering in hospital. The doctors give him a good prognosis.” Williams assured him. “May I continue?”

She cleared her throat. “At present, we’re holding John Doe here in a stasis box while he’s moved to a secure holding facility for interrogation. The good thing about that is that we’ve got plenty of time to get our intel together. At this point, however, The Company considers it extremely likely that he’s a member of an extraterrestrial organisation known as “The Hierarchy”, with unknown but apparently hostile motives towards Earth and the whole human race.”

The lights came back up. Rutherford took over. “The purpose of this meeting is to compare notes and to furnish the CIA with everything they might need to aid the interrogation. Mr. Jenkins will reiterate everything that he has learned about the Hierarchy.”

“And the Brits?” Kevin asked, looking at them.

Temba cleared his throat. “As a British Overseas Territory, the settlement of Folctha on the planet Cimbrean reports any intelligence or developments directly to us, and classified.”

Higgins elaborated. “The most recent of that information appears to be somewhat relevant.”

“Let’s hear it.” Jenkins challenged.

“We’d prefer to hear from you first, Mr. Jenkins.” Higgins said, softly.

“Hear what, exactly?” He asked.

Hamilton leaned forward. “Everything.”

Date Point: ??? AV

Classified Facility, Earth.

“Well, dropping the nonhuman bombshell early seems to have paid off. Pay up.”

One of the team - there were eight of them total in the room for today - rolled his eyes and dug out a fifty dollar note, which he handed over. The bet didn’t really mean anything: that particular note had been changing hands from bet to bet for so long that nobody could remembers whose wallet (or wager) had originally produced it. “Interesting session.” he commented, as ‘Stephen’ entered the room.

Stephen wasn’t his real name - that was just the booth persona, a tool to give the detainee the convincing illusion of forming real trust and a relationship with a real person, while hopefully shielding the interrogator from getting too close. It was a tough line to tread, though - any hint of insincerity could set back the interrogation a long way. It was a damn tough job.

“How’re we doing?” He asked, grabbing a cola and sandwich from the little desktop fridge in the corner.

“Plenty of data points. He seems to respond well to politeness, and he changed tack nicely when you caught him in the lie about his name. And he definitely had a moment of panic when you dropped the “not human” bomb on him.”

“I saw it.” ‘Stephen’ agreed. “He telegraphs a lot - I was expecting an alien infiltrator to be more… stone-faced.”

“We’ve still not really established that he’s actually an ET.”

There was a gentle throat-clearing from the team’s psychologist. She was the sort of person who spoke only rarely, but commanded total attention when she did. “He pegs almost maximum on the Hypochondriasis and Psychopathic Deviate scales.” She commented, referring to something on her tablet computer. “We haven’t seen enough to rate him otherwise yet, but already, he’s a long way from ‘normal’.”

“Good start, then. What would you like for the next session?”

“Hmm…” She conferred with her assistant for a second, ending in a mutual nodding. “Schizophrenia and/or Hypomania, please?”

“Makes sense…” There was a general taking of notes.

“Lots of interesting tics. Especially that thing when I drummed my fingers.” ‘Stephen’ commented.

“That looked like ASMR to me.” the assistant psychologist chimed in.

The facility commander frowned. “ASMR?”

“Eh, the acronym’s pure pseudoscience.” said one of the team. “but the phenomenon itself is… kind of a pleasant warm fuzzy feeling in the head in response to certain stimuli.”

“What stimuli?”

“Oh… gentle tapping and scratching, soft speech, personal attention, that kind of thing.”

“You sure that’s a real thing?”

“I get it myself.” admitted the psych assistant.

The one who had explained the phenomenon nodded. “Same.”

“Sounds like it could be a useful reward. Easy to control in the booth.” added the second ’gator.

“We’ll try it.” ‘Stephen’ agreed. “I’ll do some research ahead of tomorrow’s session.”

The lead interrogator rubbed his chin. “What are you thinking of going with? If anything?”

“Still probing for now. I think ego’s going to play a big role going forward, but as for up or down… I dunno.”

“We’ve got more material for ego-down.”

“True, but we should save that.” the lead ’gator said. “For now, I think we keep it slow. Direct questions, pounce on any lies we spot, build the relationship and get a better picture.”

“Yeah, it’s still early days.” agreed the second ’gator.

“Okay. We happy with that?” There was general agreement. “Okay. We’ll call it there, start working on the next session’s questions in the morning. We’ve had a long day people, good work.”

Date Point: 3y 8m 3w AV

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada

“During my travels, I ran into the idea of the Hierarchy a few times, always in the same way that we’d talk about… you know, the Illuminati, or Area 51, or… fucking lizard people from Venus, or whatever. You know, a legend, a myth, a… conspiracy theory. Nobody took it seriously."

They did the unnerving thing of listening to him and NOT asking any questions.

“Anyway. I met Terri Boone on V-day. She was a P. I., and her client had employed her to tour the country looking for real abductees. Not the idiot anal probe mothership motherfuckers: the real deal, like me."

“She was literally in my bar when the Hunters hit Rogers Arena. Everyone’s flipping their shit over the monsters on TV, and I was grinning like a madman because, you know, I knew what was going to happen next. Been there, done that, worn the blood spatter. I took a group that big damn near solo, just a Rickyticky with a broken arm called Kirk for backup."

“This is the same Kirk who flies for the GRA now? The one who supplies Cimbrean?” asked Temba.

“Same guy, yeah. So anyway, after that I went along with Terri on her job. I had a load of money saved up and nothing to spend it on, so I thought ‘why not?’ and this… plan, just formed. About getting all the abductees to chip in their experience in this big scrapbook of sketches and personal accounts. We got news of this base being set up and we just… bounced up here, from abductee to abductee, collecting life stories along the way.”

“The Hierarchy was mentioned a few times in there too. We just stuck it in the ‘weird shit’ section. We figured it was, like, ET pop culture, you know? Anyway, that scrapbook was pretty much turned wholesale into the EBM.” he continued, referring to the Extraterrestrial Briefing Manual that had gone out from Scotch Creek to Toronto, from there to world governments, and from a leak in one of them onto the Internet in short order. “Most of the convoy gave their interviews, gave up their last little bits of intel, most of them went home. I stayed here.”

“Terri left before we even got up here, though. Think we were in… Colorado, maybe? She got a phone call, and just took off. I didn’t hear from her again until about, uh… eight or nine months ago, when she just showed up at my bar here on base. She said she was betraying her employer’s trust, handed over a USB stick full of the names of people who’re probably still off Earth right now, and a letter which she promised me not to open until I knew it needed opening.”

“That was the login and password for the online drive.” Hamilton said.

“Yeah. I think she must have known she was messing with some really dangerous people, and was going to get maybe killed, you know? She… we had… fun, you know? Which, I didn’t complain at the time, but I didn’t think she’d liked me that much before, so I guess she was… trying to squeeze as much out of life while she could.”

“Focus please, Kevin.” Tremblay reminded him.

“Right, sorry. Uhm… Anyway, last I saw of her, she left for San Diego, and the next I ever heard about her was Ares calling me a couple months ago to let me know she’d been killed, and question me about the murder.”

They listened, and he kept talking to fill the silence.

“I went to the funeral. Had a talk with Ares, he said there wasn’t much he could do to follow up on some of the leads on that cloud drive. Jurisdiction and all that bullshit, you know? But he did let me know the name of this guy Ravi Singh in New Jersey.”

“His name wasn’t Singh.” Williams said.

“I know. But, that’s how I knew him. He said he was this… nuclear disaster, fallout specialist kinda guy for the Indian nuke program. I’ll spare you the full story - I recorded it though, Tremblay’s got the recording - but the TL;DR version is that he visited… think he said eighteen planets, all class ten or higher, Deathworlds like Earth, and they all had the remnants of civilization on them.”

“Now, we’re supposed to be unique, right? The only Deathworlders in the galaxy? But here there’s eighteen ten-plus planets full of cities, all nuked to shit and gone. Apparently the Corti who took him felt that was really good evidence to support the existence of the Hierarchy. Guess it was on the money, because their ship got boarded, the Corti and the Ukrainian that they’d taken alongside Singh got iced, and he only escaped because he’s smart and paranoid and learned their language. Got back to Earth, went dark in New Jersey and stayed there. I don’t know how Terri found him.”

He shrugged. “He could probably tell you better what the Hierarchy’s all about than I could.” he confessed.

“They bombed his apartment building a couple of days after you visited.” Williams revealed. “Collapsed half of it. Five dead, including ‘Singh’ himself.”

Jenkins just closed his eyes and grimaced.

“Alright. You want my opinion? What I think the facts mean?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“I think the Hierarchy keep the conspiracy theory going because it’s… what’s that term? Plausible deniability. I think they’re real, and I think they wipe out deathworld civilizations.”

“Do you have any idea why they might do that?” Higgins asked.

“Fear! I mean, look at how much the others are shitting themselves over us.” Kevin replied. “Shoving up a forcefield, telling their ships and stations to throw us to the wolves… While I was up there I got moved on as often because they were shit-scared of me as for vagrancy. One little show of some supernatural feat like picking up a forty-pound crate in point seven Gs - you know, nothing to us, but to them it’s like "he’s an unstoppable monster, get him off the station!“. You know, I heard one of us got involved in the Dom-All war like, thirteen years ago? That stupid motherfucker’s the reason every station in the sky has a locker full of nervejam grenades nowadays. Even if the, like, general public didn’t know about us before my dumb ass got on the news mouthing off about religion? The authorities sure as shit did, and they armed their security guys accordingly. They’re fucking afraid of us, man."

“To the point of genociding… how many planets?”

“Fuck if I know. But… yeah. See threat: destroy threat. That’s how they’re thinking, most likely.”

“How are we a threat to them?” Rutherford asked.

Kevin half-laughed the word “Bro!”, shaking his head. “We’re the end of them. We’re the end of the way things used to be. Once we’re out there - like, really out there, not dipping our toe in the kiddy end like we’re doing right now? We. Will. Eat. Them. Alive. Because we can’t not, alright? Shit’s gonna get Darwinian out there, and we’ve got a four point five billion year head start over every single one of those poor dumb assholes."

He sipped his coffee and, finding it cold, set it down next to him in disgust. “The Hierarchy are just the only ones smart enough to know it. And they’re the ones doing the sensible fucking thing and wiping out threats before they become a threat."

Higgins frowned. “You make it sound almost as if you admire them for that.” he said.

Kevin shrugged. “How hard would you fight, if defeat meant the world became a place where everything you loved and lived for could no longer exist?" he asked.

“Do you mean to say you think they should succeed?” Higgins inquired.

“Hell the fuck no! I’ve been out there man, it’s a crapsack! If it’s not violently insane, it’s corrupt and callous, and if it’s not corrupt and callous it’s dumb as a stump! And that’s the status quo the Hierarchy would kill us all to protect! Things need shaking up out there! That’s the only way the galaxy’s going to become a better place, is if we head out there and start banging heads together. Gently, so they don’t burst."

“How Texan.” Higgins noted, drily.

He turned to General Rutherford. “Shall I share our part of the briefing now, sir?” he asked.

Rutherford nodded. “Oh, yes. Please do.”

Date Point: ??? AV

Classified Facility, Earth.

Time behaved strangely in the cell. There was nothing to do, nothing to look at or inspire him. For the sake of having anything to do, Six found himself doing some exercises he could remember seeing being practiced on the beach in San Diego, though he had no idea if he was doing them right.

That alone might be an indicator of his non-human status, and he was undoubtedly being surveilled, but it was that or… nothing.

So, he exercised, he slept, he was fed, and led - ears and eyes covered - to a simple bathroom where he was allowed to perform his stolen body’s necessary ablutions and clean himself. They even provided him with clean clothing. It was the only vaguely interesting thing to happen for what felt like it must have been the best part of two days.

It was a strange relief, therefore, to be finally retrieved by his taciturn handlers - never the same handlers twice, nor did they speak to him except to issue orders - and ushered back into the interview room.

The questions became, oddly, less pointed, less targeted. They started to query him about some bizarre things, claiming that it was all about “getting to know him”. Questions like his favourite foodstuffs and his preferred recreational activity were easy enough to answer, from his limited pool of human experience. Others, however, were truly strange. A favourite colour? As if there was something preferable about one narrow slice of the EM spectrum over any other arbitrary slice? The question was impenetrably strange to him. He just took a random stab and replied “green”.

That was after what felt like weeks, however, once he had bored of playing the game of refusing to answer. Nothing seemed to faze Stephen, who seemed equally content to ask the same stupid questions again and again, and was equally comfortable with any answer, or even none. It was strange, he seemed to just… genuinely enjoy Six’s company.

Six found he had no option but to look forward to Stephen’s company and his interrogations. They were the only thing that broke the monotony. Sleep. Eat. Excrete. Every so often he was taken to a large featureless room where there was room to walk, and the floor was padded for basic exercises under the watchful, silent eye of his handlers. Every day he was given the opportunity to clean up and put on fresh clothing. Every time he returned to his cell after leaving, it had been cleaned, and the bedding replaced. He was being exceptionally well looked-after, but there was nothing to do. At all.

The introduction of a second interrogator - “Carl” - almost felt like the opening of a whole new world of experience. He was similar to Stephen in most respects - a little lower and more gravelly of voice, a little less handsome, but equally polite, equally patient, equally… insightful. Neither man allowed even the faintest hint of a discrepancy to pass: they would pounce on it, pry at it, probe it with questions and unrelenting logic. They would repeat the same question over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN! It was like being slowly and inefficiently murdered with words, and no matter how often it happened, no matter how aware he was of what they were doing, the sheer irritation of it always teased out just a little bit more from him, just another detail in the hope that maybe this crumb would convince them to stop asking. With each one, they eroded yet another fragment of his lies, exposing the truth one grain at a time until all his falsehoods were gone, dissected in painstaking detail and incinerated under the glare of incomprehensibly patient scrutiny.

Despite this, the sheer novelty of having a second person to talk to was like emerging to feel the cool breeze on his face.

That became his routine, if such a word could even apply to something that seemed to happen totally at random throughout his “day.” Sometimes it was Stephen. Sometimes it was Carl. Either way, the sessions became the only interesting part of his day.

Today, it was Stephen. He didn’t even acknowledge Six’s presence for several minutes. He just… read the dossier, occasionally jotting a note or something in it. As they turned, and as the pencil scritch-scratched its way across them, those thick paper pages made a noise that echoed pleasantly in Six’s head, and he entered a kind of trance just listening to the soft sound.

He was jolted out of it when the dossier was flipped closed with a sharp snap.

“Hello Six.” Stephen said, as if he hadn’t just spent who-knew-how-long ignoring the detainee. They both always began the session with those same words.

“…Hello, Stephen.”

“Did you sleep well?”

They always asked that. The answer was always the same.

“…Not really.”

“Hmm…” Stephen frowned. “You’ve been here a while now, I would have expected you to adapt to it by now. Maybe you need a more comfortable bed.”

By Six’s starved standards, even a change to a slightly more comfortable bed sounded like bliss.

“…Is that an option?” he asked. One personality module in one implant sneered and chastised himself for the pathetic eagerness that he totally failed to keep out of his voice.

“It could be. But you ARE a detainee here, you know. Why should I give you special treatment?”

“…Of course, you wouldn’t just offer something like that without a price. Quid pro quo, yes?"

Stephen didn’t react beyond a slight uptick in the light smile he always wore. “I’m going to repeat a few questions we’ve gone over before.” he said.

“Oh, go on.”

“What’s your name?”

“You’re asking me that again?" the absurdity of it jolted Six right out of the terse mood he’d been trying to slip into. It had been the very first question Stephen had asked him, long since answered. Why would he pointlessly resurrect it now?

“What’s your name?” Stephen repeated.

Six snorted. “Mr. Johnson.” He replied, sarcastically.

Stephen’s head waved around and he smiled slightly as if the sarcasm were amusing, rather than irritating. “Please tell me your name?” He insisted.

Six sighed. “…Six…”

He was pleased to discover that the keyboard sounds were just as pleasant as ever when Stephen wrote something.

“…What’s your real name, Six?"

“That is my real name.”

“Really? Sounds more like a number to me. Surely you weren’t born as little baby Six?”

“You presume a lot about me, Stephen.”

“What, that you were born? I think that one’s a pretty universal constant. Even if you ARE an ET.”

Six said nothing. Stephen just smiled that gentle smile of his. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask you if you were comfortable.”

“I am. thankyou.”

“How was your meal?”

“Filling.” that was about all it had been.

“That’s good. So… which is it?”

“…what?”

“Well, Six is a number, and no culture I ever heard of name their kids after numbers. So either you’re not human or else you’re lying about your name. Or both, of course.”

“We name our kids some pretty strange things.” Six said.

“Who do?”

“Humans.”

“But you aren’t human, though. Are you?”

“So you keep claiming. But when there’s a woman called Moon Unit Zappa out there, you can hardly use the fact that my name is ‘Six’ as evidence of that, can you?”

Stephen’s little tilt of the head might have indicated concession. “That argument might hold more water if your head wasn’t stuffed full of alien technology.” he said.

Six considered his response, trying to map out the potential future paths of the conversation. He could claim to be a former abductee, but that would fall apart soon enough - too many inventions stacked on top of each other, he’d slip and allow a discrepancy eventually. He could -

“So why did you bomb that apartment in New Jersey?” Stephen asked, completely throwing him with the non-sequitur.

Fortunately, the truth here would work to his advantage. “That wasn’t me.”

“That was your associate, then? Considering you aren’t brothers, you really look very much alike.”

“And how do you know we aren’t brothers?”

“Genetic testing. You may look identical, but you couldn’t be less related.”

“I-”

“What about that roller derby? What did you hope to gain by shooting up a bunch of kids and their parents?”

“I didn’t have a gun. I wasn’t-”

“Why did you kill Terri Boone?”

“…Who?”

“San Diego, the car park? You killed her with a grenade launcher. Why?”

“I didn’t do that.”

“That’s funny, because for that one, we have DNA evidence that says it was you. So why did you kill her?"

“Like I said, it wasn’t me.”

“We have all the evidence which proves that it was you. So why did you kill her?”

“This is getting tiresome.”

“Why did you kill Terri Boone?”

“…”

“Why did you kill Terri Boone?”

“Would you stop that?”

“Answer the question and I’ll stop. Why did you kill-”

“It. Wasn’t. Me.”

“You’re lying. Why did you-”

"Fine!" Six exploded. “I’m not human! I’m an independent consciousness capable of uploading myself into any appropriate host! I wasn’t even on Earth when this body killed Boone!”

“Thank you.” Stephen said, mildly. He tapped away at his computer again, and Six calmed a little, shaking as the full weight of what had happened hit him. The words had erupted out of him on a tide of frustration, driven by his total deprivation of anything resembling an intellectual stimulus for… he didn’t know. Months? It felt like months. Parts of him could only figuratively gape, aghast that the secret he had guarded all of that time was finally thrown away, mined out of him by nothing but boredom.

“What, you believe that?” He asked, trying to fill his voice with scorn, hoping that mockery might salvage his failure.

“We already knew that’s what the Hierarchy is.” Stephen said. Still typing “I just needed to hear you say it.”

“Now you’re lying." Six accused. The door opened behind him and his handlers returned.

“Detainee, please stand.” they ordered. Stephen gathered his things, nodded to him, and made to leave by the opposite door.

“Come back here!” Six snapped, surging to his feet as far as his restraints would allow and straining against them. "Come back here, you! You’re LYING!"

Stephen didn’t even dignify that accusation with a response.

Six’s handlers… handled him. He seethed in the dark every step of the long and winding walk back to his cell, which seemed to take twice as long as it usually did. When they finally arrived, he found that his bed had been replaced, and a small table and chair introduced to the room. There were some coarse paper pages and a graphite stick.

Six’s bruised pride hated himself for the way he was pathetically grateful for them.

Date Point 3y 8m 3w AV

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada.

“During the deployment of the civilian colonists, we were able to send over a smaller version of the jump array installed right here at Scotch Creek.” Higgins began. Jenkins raised a hand.

“I’m sorry, ‘jump array’? I thought they were travelling on Kirk’s ship?”

“The Jump array is, as far as we can tell, a uniquely human invention.” Tremblay said. “Bartlett came up with it. Point-to-point transport of materiel via wormhole between two Array stations. One end’s here on base, the other end of that big array is on Kirk’s ship.”

“…cool!”

“Well, anyway.” Higgins continued. “We assembled a smaller version, which we’re calling the ‘postbox’. It’s a useful way to support the colony - they can send back written messages and USB sticks to stay in touch, we can send over spare parts, medical supplies… Right now we’re sending over the pieces to construct a coffin-sized version for transit of individual persons.”

“Yesterday, the military commander there, Captain Owen Powell, sent us back this urgent report.”

The lights dimmed again and Temba selected a video file.

The face addressing the camera was a tired-looking, bearded man wearing a black pullover and a dull green beany. "Project Starstep CO’s daily report, Fifteen-thirty hours, mission day eighty-two." he recited, in a thick accent that reminded Kevin of Sean Bean. "Saunders came back, broadcasting IFF this time, thankfully. He’s given us a couple of starships he claims he stole from the Hierarchy. I’m going to repeat my request to get some experts in ET tech assigned here ASAP: he’s right, we NEED people who can take these things apart. Bad news is, the bloody things don’t have jump drives, so we can’t send them back to Earth for analysis."

"The worse news is, that this is just two - Saunders kept a third - out of probably a whole lot of this class of ship. They have better-than-best cloaking tech, and so do their missiles. These aren’t small ships, neither. They’re bigger than an aircraft carrier, about as heavily armed as a cruiser, and from what I saw they’re equipped for assault, bombardment, and invasion. There’s got to be some kind of a shipyard out there making these things."

"I’ve talked it over with Sir Jeremy, and our recommendations are as follows: One: We need to get the Coffin set up and bring forward the schedule for the full-scale Array. Two: I want to raise the system shield and go public. Sooner we do it, the less likely we are to have some infiltrator sneak in and drop a beacon. Three: I’m going to need naval crews to assign to these things, and somebody who knows how to refit them with a jump drive. Four: Saunders thinks we should keep them here to defend the colony. I disagree: I think there’s a shipyard out there that needs capturing if possible, and blowing the fook up if not. My lads are itching for a real mission. No further recommendations at this time."

He swigged some water before continuing.

"The other half of Saunders’ delivery, which you’ll probably find more immediately useful, is enclosed. This Hierarchy he keeps talking about apparently have the ability to treat a mind like a data file - transfer it, store it, run it on computers. I’ve gone over that in a previous report. This time, he’s delivered the - he called it the dissected consciousness of a Hierarchy agent known as ‘Zero’. We can’t make heads nor tails of it, but he’s got a friend who can interrogate it - enclosed is what’s been learned so far. I’m inclined to trust it."

He rubbed his beard.

"The existence of a Hierarchy cell on Earth seems likely. Hopefully the information in this document will help Intelligence catch the buggers."

He examined some paperwork for a second, thinking.

"Nowt else to report militarily. Colonial militia training is going well. Sir Jeremy’s civilian report will follow in due time, I consider this high- priority so am sending now. Powell out."

Higgins turned the lights back up.

“Saunders is an Australian abductee.” he clarified. “And apparently something of a practical expert in alien technology. He crash-landed an Alliance cruiser on Cimbrean a few weeks ago, and was cooperative in sharing intelligence and technology with the project. It’s thanks to him that this facility has a working cloaking device to study. Educated by his own example, some of the SBS divers were able to retrieve examples of working alien power generators.”

“As for the content of the report,” Temba picked up “It details - pretty much in full - what, exactly, the Hierarchy is.”

Date Point: 3y 11m 2w AV

National Air and Space Museum, Washington D. C., USA, Earth.

“It’s amazing how much you can come to care about an inanimate object.”

Rylee wasn’t accustomed to public speaking. Nor was she accustomed to dressing for official functions or historic moments. She felt more comfortable in a jumpsuit or her flight suit than in a dress.

“I admit: I’m in love with Pandora. Together we created history. I’d fly her forever if I could. But Pandora doesn’t belong to me. With the retirement of the Lockheed-Martin TS-101 X-plane, she now belongs to history, and I am proud that she will continue to serve and inspire mankind, here in this illustrious Smithsonian Museum."

Camera flashes caught every moment. She knew they’d comment that she was crying: she didn’t care. She was allowed to mourn the turning of this page. She stretched up on tip-toe to kiss Pandora’s nose, and rested her forehead against the plane’s cool hull, ignoring the redoubled sparkle of the media for a few seconds.

Then she collected herself and turned back to the microphone, accepting the museum director’s offered handkerchief as he asked the reporters for questions.

Date Point: ??? AV

Classified Facility, Earth.

“So what did he write?”

“Looks like mostly doodling…”

Monitoring the detainee’s scribbles and notes was a routine operation, done whenever they cleaned up his cell while he was outside of it. It wasn’t a difficult process. One or two quick snaps with the camera was all it took. There was a lot that could be learned about the detainee from what they chose to jot down by way of entertaining themselves.

The pages were densely packed with what appeared to be mostly nonsense and doodles: scribbles, spirals, zig-zag lines. There was a kind of aesthetic to it, albeit a spartan, mathematical one. Six’s lines were mostly either parallel or perpendicular, or at least as much so as could be managed by unpracticed human hands. Beyond that, he didn’t seem to care what he drew so long as the graphite made a stimulating sound on the paper. Mostly, it was just a geometric right-angled mess.

“Not a lot to go on.”

“No…”

She looked around at the team. Her job went both ways - as psychologist, not only was she there to analyze and hypothesize about the detainee’s reactions, she was there to keep an eye on the ’gators and their intel support, make sure they were holding up okay.

It was a fact little suspected by the civilian world that interrogation was practically as hard on the people conducting it as upon their detainee. While the interrogators had the luxury of seeing the outside world, freedom of movement, nice meals, unlimited entertainment and all the perks of being a free American citizen, at the end of the day they were still tearing a man apart piece by piece to learn the things he held most dear.

Only a true psychopath could have done that without being torn up in turn, and a psychopath simply wouldn’t have a place on this team.

And Six was proving to be a tough nut to crack. ‘Stephen’ and ‘Carl’ were both veterans and experts, having done this many times before. Their information had saved lives, they knew how to cope.

But there was always the possibility that this time might be the time that all their experience and coping mechanisms failed them. Their veterancy was not an excuse for her to become lax in monitoring them.

She watched the two booth-guys for a minute. They were talking, quietly, and while both looked stressed and subdued there were no immediate causes for alarm that she could detect.

Long-term…

Well. Maybe she could recommend something that would be good both for them and for the detainee.

Date Point: 3y 11m 3w AV

Dominion Embassy Station 172, Terra/Luna L1 point.

“Are you okay?”

Sister Niral had elected to remain aboard the Embassy station until her pregnancy forced her back to Gao. The preliminary results were encouraging - she was expecting triplets, and if she’d been human, might have been called “glowing”.

As it was, she was the first person Rylee went to after the unpleasant necessity of the Smithsonian meetings, speeches, interviews and photographs. Any awkwardness between them was long since past, and over the months since, as the last few flights of the TS-101 had wound down, they had become fast friends.

Niral, it turned out, loved to groom her sisters’ fur, and this quirk extended to human hair. Rylee kept it short by necessity - long hair and space helmets did NOT mix - but it felt good to let her nonhuman friend work on it.

Rylee sighed. “I will be.” she said. “I always knew Pandora was an X-plane, a prototype. She’s wonderful, but she’s not a patch on what companies like LockMart can produce now that they know what they’re doing."

“You’ll be flying the replacement?”

“Hey, my career’s not over just because they’re retiring my sled.” Rylee told her. “Though, I’m being headhunted by the private sector. Lots of big money being flashed at me to try to get me to quit NASA and test-pilot their designs.”

Niral issued a kind of melodic purr that Rylee had learned passed for the equivalent of a “hmm” in her species. “That doesn’t sound like you at all.” she said.

“Nope. I’m in it for the science, for the species, not to get rich while I make some billionaires even richer.”

“What do you think it’ll be like? The replacement?”

“Similar.” Rylee admitted. “A lot went right with the one-oh-one, but it was… you know, the tolerances were looser because we didn’t know what it’d be like, and that hurts performance.”

“I think only you would notice the difference.” Niral commented, chittering a Gaoian laugh. As a diplomat herself, the fields of aeronautics and piloting were outside her experience, but she had gathered enough from the arguments between the two pilots in her life to know that Rylee’s constant maintenance and tuning of her ‘sled’ was enough to earn margins that any Gaoian pilot would have considered not worth the effort.

“Hey, the little differences add up. Point-five percent might not sound like much, but at the kind of accelerations we… think these things will get up to in the field, that could be the difference between a fatal hit and a clean miss.”

“There’s other things, too. Our ES field tech’s improving by leaps and bounds, the JPL’s turned out their most efficient warp engine yet… you watch, I’ll always love Pandora but I’m not dumb enough to think that her replacement will be worse. It’ll be better: WAY better."

“So what are you doing in the interim?” Niral asked.

“Classified, sorry babe.”

Niral knew better than to pry, so the two sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes before the quarters spoke an untranslated sentence in a Gaoian dialect. To Rylee’s untrained ear, it sounded not dissimilar to Korean.

“A launch!” the Gaoian said, abandoning Rylee’s scalp to spring over the window. “I still can’t quite believe your people still use rockets…”

“Well, they’ve got kinetics and ES fields now.” Rylee said, joining her. There was something fun about watching a launch, from orbit. “And Earth’s gravity hasn’t changed - they’re still the best way to haul bulk stuff into orbit for us.”

Technically, “Kinetics” was a gross misnomer which routinely earned an impromptu lecture on correct definitions for anybody who was so incautious as to utter it within earshot of scientific pedants, or on the Internet, but the translated alien vernacular was tenacious. It was hardly surprising that it had been one of Time’s words of the year, given that the introduction of what was, after all, an extremely small and efficient engine had decimated the cost-per-kilogram of material transport from ground to orbit, revitalizing the space industry practically overnight.

From where the station rested at the Terra/Luna L1 point, Earth was much, MUCH too far away to make out such a tiny event as a launch with the naked eye of course, but the station took care of that, zooming and magnifying to an incredible degree, so that the vehicle became a spike of light atop a pillar, smoking its way up from the curvature of the planet. The perspective was a little false, but it looked cool as hell.

“How much can this thing zoom in?” she asked. Niral spoke to the room in Gaoian again - it was curious how directions to the station’s controlling systems didn’t get translated - and the view zoomed in even further, until the rocket itself filled the view, a slender white spike marked down its flank with the livery of several world-famous companies, the so-called “Big Ten” that were co-operating in the Second Space Race.

“Oh my God! That’s Hephaestus One!” Rylee exclaimed. “I forgot that was today!”

“Hephaestus One?”

“Yeah! It’s the first flight out to Ceres.” Rylee explained. “They’re going to set up an asteroid mining hub and shipyard out there.”

“Your people move fast!” Niral remarked, clearly impressed. “It took us ten Gaoian years to launch our first asteroid mining operation.”

“How long is that in Earth years?”

“Room?”

The room displayed a conversion table on the window alongside the view of the rocket. Rylee read it and nodded.

“I bet I know the reason.” she said. “Will this room take voice commands from me?”

“It should do…”

“Great.” Rylee looked around, then shrugged and commanded: “Uh, Room: Display side-by-side comparisons of the estimated number of asteroids in the Sol system versus the Gao system, and display survey maps for rare earth elements on Earth and the planet Gao.”

Graphs and two globes appeared side-by side on the walls and windows as the station’s interface systems interpreted the command and expanded on it, trying to guess not only what Rylee had asked for, but also what she might not yet know she wanted.

She had to admit - as unimpressive as some of the achievements of nonhuman life were, when it came to user-friendly interfaces, they were the absolute masters. It looked like something straight out of a movie, but practical. Every element was clearly presented, its relationship to every other, obvious. She took a moment to appreciate the accomplishment, before turning to the relevant data.

“See here? Sol has a HUGE density of inner-system asteroids next to Gao.” she said. “And then over here, look: Your homeworld’s pretty rich in Rare Earths and they’re all spread out pretty evenly. But Earth is poor in Rare Earths, and they’re mostly here, under the control of only a couple of political factions. But there’s a boatload in the asteroids.” she indicated a chart demonstrating the estimated absolute tonnage of various elements and minerals in the asteroid belt. “And we need rare earth magnets to build ES field generators. And ES field generators are a huge boom industry right now.”

“So getting out there quickly ensures that the supply remains constant and averts a future problem? Sensible.” Niral said.

Rylee laughed. “So getting out there quickly ensures that a whole bunch of very rich people get even richer.” She countered.

“You don’t sound like you mind that.” Niral said.

“Why should I? It works. You said it yourself, it took you guys twice as long to do this.”

“It sounds… greedy.” Niral objected.

“Yeah! Greed is good, girl!”

Niral just stared at her. “Rylee, if it wasn’t for the sex thing, that would be the most alien thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Rylee just shrugged. “Room, clear the data, focus on the rocket again.”

They watched it separate a stage. Force fields unfolded around and behind it, catching the solar wind and reminding Rylee of an ancient sailship as they swept Hephaestus One’s path clear of orbital debris and sucked down power for the warp engine. It took only seconds: in a flare of light, the private rocket leapt into the impossible distance and was gone.

“Alien or not honey, there’s the proof.” she said.

Date Point ???

Classified Facility, Earth.

“Hello, Six.”

“…”

“How are you feeling today?”

“…”

“Did you sleep well? How’s the new bed?”

“…”

“Not talking to me?”

“…”

“Okay. Let me know if you want to talk.”

The unspeakable bastard just got out a deck of playing cards and started to deal them out on the desk in front of him, playing some kind of a game as if Six’s stubborn silence were of exactly no consequence to him.

The sound washed over him, as it always seemed to. He wondered if that was why Stephen used these tools - because he too enjoyed the sound they made. Was it a quirk of the way humans saw the world, that simple things could be so… mesmerizing?

“Beats me why I bother with the cards.” Stephen commented. “I could play on the computer instead…”

That didn’t seem like an attractive option.

“Hey, do you want this deck?”

The offer surprised him. Surely Stephen wasn’t serious? But then again, he’d been true to his word about the bed…

No. It was just a trick to get him to give up and start talking again. He wouldn’t be swayed that easily, and so Six folded his arms and continued to glare.

“Suit yourself.” Stephen finished his game, and put the cards away. Surprisingly he stood up. “I guess you’re not in the mood today? That’s cool, we’ll do something a little different. See you in a few minutes.”

He exited the room as the guards entered. Six knew better than to resist by now, but he was curious about this ‘something a little different’, and his pulse picked up a little as the guards led him to somewhere that had… an indefinably different texture to the area around his cell and the interrogation room. It was hard to tell - the human body had senses he was sure weren’t quite analogous to anything else he had experienced. Despite the total disorientation of the darkness and silence, he could still somehow feel that the area around him was not the same, somehow. There was a feeling of volume.

The sensation was validated when his blindfold was removed. He WAS somewhere new, a larger area - still totally enclosed, but big enough to run if he so wanted. There was a hoop of some kind attached to the wall a little above head height, and some markings on the ground.

Stephen and Carl were both waiting for him, having apparently changed into plain, loose clothing that looked much more comfortable than their suits, and a pair of soft shoes. Carl was holding a stippled orange sphere with black lines on its surface.

“What’s this?” Six asked, then cursed himself for giving in to the surprise as his shackles were removed and the guards retired to stand watchfully at the door.

“Basketball.” Carl said, and threw the ball to the ground. It bounced back up, and he gently flung it down again with his other hand. “The idea is to get the ball to fall through that hoop on the wall, and stop me from doing the same. You can’t run while holding the ball, though - you have to bounce it on the floor like this.” he demonstrated, swapping the ball from hand to hand via the hard surface.

“What’s your angle here, gentlemen?” Six asked, suspiciously.

Carl threw the ball gently to Stephen, who caught it and spun it on one finger in a display of impressive coordination. “No angle. This is a morale and welfare session now. You need the stimulation and exercise.” he said.

“So, it’s a reward for good behavior.”

“That too.” Stephen agreed. “Come on, you going to play or not?” His arms punched straight out, flinging the ball at Six, who astonished himself by catching the high-speed object.

He considered resisting, but after the sheer grey sameness of the last few weeks, how could he? He knew he was being manipulated, he knew this was just another tool in the arsenal that these people were using to dissect him and extract his valuable knowledge, but no amount of willpower in the world could stop him from being, on everything but the purely cerebral level, shamefully eager to move, to play, to do something different.

He bounced the ball.

When the session ended, who-knew how long later, he was exhausted, but he felt alive, and something approaching happy for the first time since arriving in this place.

Date Point: 4y 3w AV

Asteroid Ceres, Sol System

Construction work on Ceres Base had begun well before the first engineers had arrived. Cargo modules full of the raw materials, equipment, prefabricated units, life support systems, artificial gravity generators and ES field generators necessary to construct a working facility had been injected into orbit, revolving slowly in the asteroid’s pathetic gravity.

It had all come together with only a few minor disasters. With the ability to deliver engineers to the worksite to remote-control the construction vehicles without significant communications lag, gentle landings in Ceres’ miniscule gravity had been trivial. Setbacks, however, were inevitable. One of the modular base components had suffered a failure of its landing, running out of fuel and falling to ground several hundred meters from its intended location. Moving it had required the assembly and delivery of a specialist module- refuelling drone

The planned landing site for another module had turned out to be the sheer edge of a crater. Fortunately, the module had not been a location-critical one, and its eventual installation on the far side of the base was just going to be one of those peculiar quirks that lent it a unique character.

That was Phase One, just making the place livable in the long term, appropriate for habitation and experimentation. It had consumed only half of the orbiting equipment.

The second phase, and the other half, was to turn the facility into something that would, ultimately, turn a profit. The smaller part of that, equipment- wise, was the Survey Center, a launch and control platform for a fleet of Unmanned Space Vehicles that would - assuming their design and technology worked as intended - survey the tumbling, diffuse rocks of the Belt in search of Platinum, Rare Earths, Iron, Nickel, Titanium, and of course water.

The larger part, dwarfing the facility despite not yet being complete, was the sprawling industrial monstrosity of the refining and smelting equipment, literally “printing” itself into existence piece by piece out of local materials.

This edifice couldn’t possibly have been built on Earth - it was an eyesore testament to low-gravity industry, constructed around a functional contempt for aesthetics.

Drew Cavendish loved it.

But then again, Drew Cavendish didn’t have much patience for aesthetics for the sake of aesthetics. His sense of beauty revolved around the practical, the working, the mechanically efficient. He was the sort of man who would squint bewildered at an art gallery, but wax poetic about an example of expert welding.

Ceres Base was therefore the perfect destination for him, after a career spent working oil and gas rigs in the North Sea. That was a field that had been in terminal decline even before the arrival of effectively free solar energy in the form of ES field technology and - rumour had it - the long-awaited holy grail of nuclear fusion.

Taking up with BHP Billiton’s fledgling asteroid mining program had just been sensible for somebody with twenty years of experience in Atmospheric Diving Suits. Not least because the basic salary was 50% higher than he’d been earning at the peak of his Earthly career, with a promise of simply huge annual yield-based bonuses.

Naively, he’d assumed that piloting a Red Bull spacesuit wasn’t so very dissimilar to driving an ADS. Both were bulky, rigid, prevented you from scratching your itches and served to keep you more or less comfortable when surrounded by a medium - or lack thereof - that would kill you, for all intents and purposes instantly.

That had been driven out of him in simulator time with a VR headset. Movements that would have been perfectly safe when welding a deep water rig, where the water would cushion and stop any stray movements, could send an incautious spacewalker drifting. A ’walker could get in serious trouble just millimeters from a handhold, with nothing to kick, swim or exert any force against to move them the tantalizing distance back to safety.

He had been surprised to learn that, in freefall and when out of contact with any surface, moving his arm also pushed the rest of his body around in accordance with Sir Isaac Newton’s most ancient and famous principle of reaction. Unnoticeable when your boots were firmly on a surface under even the most tepid gravity - but enough to set a man spinning when floating free, and surprisingly tiring.

But, he had cleared training. Quickly, too, and with straight As. And now… here he was. Ceres. And beyond one glamorous tour out here getting the place set up, once the first bonus rolled in?

Well, he’d always promised himself that he would one day leave the grey and choppy seas of Northern Europe behind for waters that were clearer, calmer, and garnished with bikini-clad waitresses and fruit drinks. He’d never anticipated that his route to paradise would be via deep space, but that was life. He’d get there.

All he had to do was work.

“Bloody impressive.” he commented, watching the pressure doors swing themselves closed behind the Hephaestus vehicle that had delivered him and some other newbies. Technically, the landing bay was perfectly pressurised by the gossamer curtain of an atmosphere retention field, but Health and Safety regulations insisted that the vehicle’s own airlocks were not to be opened until the physical pressure doors were closed and the seals had been checked.

It was a source of considerable bemusement for the handful of nonhumans who had been taken on as consultants and advisors to the operation that the LLC would simply not hear a single word about relying on atmosphere retention fields. They seemed to regard it as quaint to be leery of relying on a system that could fail in a heartbeat if it lost power. Drew wondered just how bloody daft and foolhardy these aliens must be to rely on a bloody force field to keep their air in, without redundancies or failsafes.

Still. Questionable attitude to safety aside, they knew more about mining asteroids than any human did, and that made them sufficiently valuable to the operation that translation and disease-suppression implants had been mandatory for all personnel. Drew was already in the habit of running his fingers over the slight ridges of metal that adorned his temple, which was already being called the “Spacer’s Tattoo”, but he’d fortunately managed to suppress the urge to lick the back of his too-clean teeth.

"Sugoi." agreed Heikichi.

Heikichi Togo’s ship suit bore the three diamonds of Mitsubishi. He was an expert in industrial robotics whose English could charitably be described as “abysmal”, but that simply didn’t matter thanks to the implants. He could rattle away in Japanese all he wanted and, despite not speaking word one of that language himself, Drew would know exactly what he meant. That had significantly freed up the LLC to recruit from all over the world without regard for language barriers.

“D’you know where you’re sleeping yet, Togo-san?” he asked. Drew may not have spoken a word of Japanese, but he knew about calling people ‘-san’ if you wanted to be polite, and it seemed to be appreciated.

“Not yet.” Togo admitted. “If the company hasn’t got a place picked out for me, I think I’ll just have to pick out my own.”

“Well, I’m in D-block, and you seem like you’d make a good top-bunk buddy.” Drew told him as the safety teams declared the hangar sealed and the H-vehicle popped its seals.

“Thank you, Cavendish-san.”

“Hey, we don’t stand on ceremony like that where I’m from. You can call me Drew if you want.”

"Daroo."

“Close enough, mate.” They shook hands and parted ways, bound for the offices of their respective company reps.

The complex was eerily quiet compared to the staging platform in Earth orbit. Where that was a space station, made oddly loud by the absence of any medium outside to carry away the sounds so that they echoed around the interior, here the facility’s modules were anchored to the rock of the asteroid and had a layer of sound insulation on their underside that conducted noises away into Ceres itself. It was much more peaceful, and cooler too for the same reasons.

Still, it WAS cramped, full of narrow corridors lined with equipment, conduits, cables and piping, all hung with instructions and safety posters. He could see why a maximum BMI had been one of the conditions of employment - anybody too bulky in these corridors would have been a serious obstacle to the flow of traffic that already involved turning sideways every few steps.

The B-B administrative module felt almost like any office complex back on Earth, albeit one that was after-hours, or maybe open on a holiday. The only movement so far was a trio of IT techs getting the computers set up, and the Dyson robot vacuum cleaner that was methodically patrolling the carpet. He was just wondering which office was to be his and whose he should report to when a slick-haired skinny blond man with a chestnut tan and a few too many wrinkles for his age stuck his head out and shot him a very white smile. He was wearing a loud blue aloha shirt over his company overalls.

“G’day! You Cavendish?” he asked. He couldn’t have been more stereotypically Australian if he’d been wearing a hat with corks in it.

“That’s me.” Drew agreed.

“Beaut.” The antipodean extended a hand. “Drew Martin, mate, I’m yer foreman.”

“Ah, you’re the other Drew?” Cavendish returned the handshake. “Good to meet you, mate. I heard good things about you from Dai Dawson.”

“Good old Dai.” Martin grinned. “Bloody good miner that one, had Bauxite in his bones.”

“He said something similar about you.”

“Ripper. Come on, step into my office.”

Martin’s office was, mercifully, not as Straya’d up as the man himself - in fact it was the purely professional space of somebody who took their job completely seriously. The walls were already thoroughly papered in charts, rotas, schedules, checklists and more - the paraphernalia of a mining director. His desk was a line of four monitors, all currently on a screensaver.

“Good news is, we’ve found our first rock already.” he declared. “One of the USVs caught a nice first prospect, and it’s in a stable Ceres orbit too, so no time limit either. Perfect first score.”

“How big?”

“CB group, two hundred and eighty meters. About twenty-seven metric megatons of bencubbinite.”

Both Drews grinned. That one rock alone contained enough nickel and iron to assemble the entire facility.

“So we’re just installing the stability thrusters.” Drew C mused, thinking ahead. There would be no need for anything else for an asteroid that was orbiting Ceres itself. Just enough to correct its orbit whenever it became perturbed. His team’s job was to fly out to new stakes and fit them with the engines that would gently nudge them into Ceres orbit for the mining teams to take over.

“Bloody right!”

“When?”

“Your team arrives Thursday. I want you checking the suits and gear, make sure everything’s up to code. We’ll go when you’re happy.”

“Great. I’ll get settled in for now, start on all that in the day shift tomorrow.”

“Bonzer. Looks like it’ll be good workin’ with ya, you pommie bastard.”

Drew chuckled, knowing full well that Drew M was just being friendly. “Looks like.” he agreed.

Date point: ??? AV

Classified Facility, Earth

Six hated himself.

He hated humans.

He especially hated Stephen and Carl.

But most of all, he hated the conclusion he was starting to form.

The conclusion was this: That victory was impossible. There was, he was coming to realise, simply no way to withhold the information that his interrogators wanted. He should suicide now, pop the implants in his head and rob them of their victory before they won it.

But something was stopping him and the thing that most frustrated him was that he simply couldn’t figure out what it was.

He was being played like an instrument - little rewards were given when he surrendered, snatched away the second he fought back. The incredible boredom grated against his very essence as a thinking being, relieved only by interrogation sessions and - he had come to truly crave these - Morale and Welfare sessions.

He felt like he had been stuck in his hole for a YEAR. Time had lost meaning. He slept because there was little else to do. He rationed the meager entertainment he was allowed, mourned it whenever his noncompliance took it away from him.

And he knew - knew - that they weren’t being cruel. Not really. The rules were clear, and were enforced without malice. If he complied, he was granted some perks. If he didn’t, then he lost them. In that regard he might as well have been enduring the attention of a machine rather than of people, and he couldn’t blame the system when it was plainly clear that the degree of stimulation and reward he received was a product of his own actions.

He would punish himself out of pride. Then he would spend what felt like weeks desperately clawing back what his stubborn foolishness had cost him.

He couldn’t win, and he knew it.

And it was this thought that finally blossomed into an understanding of why he didn’t just self-terminate.

He was SIX. A single-digit, architect of the death of species. He knew himself to be among the very, very best that the Hierarchy had at its disposal. Above his rank, they became administrators and planners, divorced from the reality of the fight. Below his rank, the other Numbers lacked his experience and competence.

And he couldn’t win.

And if he couldn’t… could the Hierarchy?

In the dark hours in his cell, he thought about it, scratching idly at the one perk he had retained - his paper and graphite.

And when they came to collect him in the morning, he walked calmly, surprised to find that the worst was over, now that he had given up.

Today, it was Carl’s turn to interview him.

“Hello, Six.”

“Hello, Carl.”

“How are you today?

“…beaten.”

Carl raised his eyebrows. “Beaten?”

Six wept.

And he started to speak.

He told them everything.

Date Point: 4y 2m 1w AV.

Orlando, Florida, USA, Earth.

Gabriel Ares leaned heavily on his cane as he watched the kids shoot down the ramp into the water at the end of the Jurassic Park ride, in a white plume that soaked some of the spectators.

The fight to take Adam away from San Diego for a few days had been an arduous one. His ex-wife had fought it every step of the way. But, by mercy and probably the hand of an archangel, the courts had agreed that a police detective who was recovering from near-fatal injuries had every right to take his only child on vacation.

Securing the permission of Ava’s parents to bring their daughter along had been much easier. She and Adam were totally devoted to one another. That fact had been the light that kept the depression at bay while Gabriel convalesced.

He was treating them - and himself - to a week-long tour of the major theme parks.

The kids bounced up to him a few minutes later, hand in hand. Both were now past their sixteenth birthdays, and Gabriel wished his own love life had been so good at that age.

“Where next?” Adam asked. Ava nudged him in the ribs and rolled her eyes.

“Are you okay, Gabe?” she asked. Gabriel had insisted that she use his first name.

“I’m a bit sore.” he admitted. “I could do to sit down. You guys want ice- cream?”

“Sounds good.” she agreed. Adam looked like he’d have preferred to run straight to the next ride, but he relented, knowing that Gabe still wasn’t fully recovered yet. He’d spent so long in a hospital bed thanks to the spinal damage that all the muscles in his legs had atrophied, and his rehab therapy hadn’t yet quite restored him to full working order.

"Bueno." Gabriel fished a few dollars from his wallet and waved them in the general direction of the last vendor they’d seen, then puffed and grimaced his way to the nearest available bench and lowered himself into it, enjoying the sun.

Life was, all things considered, pretty good. He was alive and on the mend, his boy was in love, and his novel was coming along nicely.

Considering it hadn’t been so long ago that he’d been racing to save the kids from a mass-shooting only to be shot himself, life was pretty damn good.

"Dad! DAD!!"

The kids were pelting back towards him, and their expressions drove the ache and fatigue out of him. He lurched to his feet.

Children shouldn’t have worn such expressions of terror.

“What happened?!”

Date Point ??? AV

Classified Facility, Earth.

At some point during Six’s final failure, Carl had moved his chair around the desk, and was just sitting there, rubbing a hand up and down Six’s spine. It was contact, real contact, a genuine gesture of comfort and compassion from one of the men who had broken him.

There was a long silence after the last secret spilled from him.

“Hey… Six? I’m sorry man.”

Six looked up, and the sight of tears in Carl’s own eyes shook him deeply. He’d known that he had built something of a relationship - even a warped friendship - with his interrogators over his long incarceration. But he had always persuaded himself that it was a distant one, with a thick professional barrier in place.

<They hurt themselves to break me> He thought. But he wouldn’t have been Six if he hadn’t tried to fight back, to claim something here and now, in Carl’s moment of weakness. To hurt him, on an emotional level.

"Fuck you. You’ve beaten me. I’ve betrayed everything I ever lived or cared for. I’ve DESTROYED the Hierarchy. And now you’re fucking sorry?!" he exclaimed.

“More than you can know, man. I’ve been through this, it’s how I learned to do it.”

Carl looked down and wiped his eye, before looking back up, and now there was a determined set to his face.

“You and I are a lot alike, Six. We’ll do anything for our people. Me… I’ll bleed for them. I’ll hurt myself in all kinds of ways for all the lucky fucks out there -" he waved an arm at the wall, indicating the whole world beyond “- who don’t know the first goddamn thing about what kind of pain gets put into keeping their lives happy and safe. So yeah, I get it. And I’m so very, very sorry that I did this to you. I mean that. And Stephen would say it too, if he was here."

Six just looked away. “It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry or not. You’ve won. I’ve lost. And if your people wage war like they get information out of people, then my kind are doomed.”

There was a long silence. Then Carl stood, returned to his side of the desk, and grabbed a folder from under his laptop.

“…Do you remember one of the first things you were told when you arrived here, Six?” he asked.

Six just stared at him blank. But, too tired and defeated to put up a fight, he reviewed his memory archives of the very first session. One of the - he had now learned, few - advantages of being a machine intellect was perfect recall of details like that.

“I was told… That Stephen was assigned to my case.” he said, reciting the memory in order. “That your goal was to learn as much as possible about my associates and me. That my first meal here consisted of mashed potato, biscuits and gravy, and peas and carrots. That you don’t do ‘that kind of thing’, meaning the torture I had alluded to moments earlier. That I was perfectly safe. That your first and most important priorities were information and…”

He paused. “And…”

“…And a peaceful resolution.” Carl finished for him.

“I’ve just told you that the Hierarchy’s objective is your extinction, and you’re saying that you still want a peaceful resolution?"

Carl rested his elbows on the desktop. “My nation has fought bloody and difficult wars in opposition to genocide all across our planet. And from what you’ve told me, your species and the Hierarchy are about the same thing to each other as this organisation is to the American public. Which means that your people are… more or less - blameless of plotting to destroy us."

He shrugged. “For me, the idea of wiping out your civilization of trillions to save our civilization of billions sticks in the craw. Never mind that doing so would mean having to slaughter every other living thing in the galaxy."

“Which you could.” Six said.

“Easily.” Carl agreed. “If we wanted to. We don’t.”

Six snorted. “You aren’t authorized to speak for your whole species.”

“Nope.” Carl agreed again. “But still: we don’t. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we’ll just sit back and invite you to wipe us out. If it comes to it, if the only way to survive is to wipe out every living thing in the Milky Way? We would, if we have to."

He locked eyes with Six. "Do we have to?"

“What’s the alternative?”

“The alternative is, you and I come up with a way to save both our peoples."

Date Point: 4y 2m 1w AV.

San Diego, California, USA, Earth.

Seventy-Two was panicking, and now was a terrible time to be doing that.

He had planned to switch safe-houses immediately upon the fiasco at Skateworld, but that was a complicated and risky process which demanded biodrones for maximum security. Things were just too sensitive to rely on local resources - these things weren’t Vzk’tk, Robalin or Allebenellin. They weren’t stupid or mercenary enough to fail to notice something amiss.

So, against his better judgement and good protocol, he had been forced to remain where he was for months, hoping that finally some appropriate human subject would blunder into his stasis trap for conversion into a biodrone.

That hadn’t happened. Instead, months had passed without development. Six had been declared killed, and restored from his last backup. The replacement Six had not returned to Earth, but had remained offworld to ponder the implications of the almost prescient response to their planned hive-poking. 72 was, for the time being, on his own again while the Hierarchy decided what to do.

For now, he needed to rebuild his assets and await orders.

Then the assault started.

It came from nowhere. Cars converged on the building in whose basement he lurked, peeling out of the ordinary city traffic all at once, parking synchronized in the alleyways and streets around him, while vans hauled into place and heavily armed, heavily armoured soldiers deployed barricades, holding back the city public.

There were three layers of door and wall between 72’s inner sanctum and street level. The outermost layer was breached almost before he had become alert to the attack, physically smashed off their hinges by men with steel tools.

The second layer of doors were thicker and sturdier. They bought him time to consider his options.

There were almost none. While every Hierarchy safehouse had contingencies in place to destroy it and leave no evidence of its having been there, all bar one of them relied on the sanctuary not being under attack at the time.

Well. That settled it then: all bar one meant there was only one option. He began his backup as the second doors were opened by means of explosive charges.

It finished just as those same charges were being rigged on the third and final doors.

They blew inwards just as Seventy-Two sent the command.

Kilolightyears away, undetectable in interstellar space, an ancient repository received a signal it had not been sent in nearly four million years. In response to that signal, it sent one of its stored packages directly to Earth via wormhole displacement.

Light bent and reality warped in the middle of the room as the first soldiers barged in. The event horizon collapsed, leaving behind a sphere of perfect blackness, like a black hole hanging in the middle of the room.

Without its power source, the stasis field collapsed within a microsecond.

Very, very briefly, five kilograms of pure antimatter were let loose in the heart of downtown San Diego.

They forever changed the face of the Earth.

Chapter 19
Chapter 16: “Firebird” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Date Point: 4y 2m 1w 2d AV

Classified Facility, Earth

CIA Interrogation Team Planning Session

“Two and a half million people dead. Another half-million expected to die worldwide from the mid-term repercussions, and nobody has even BEGUN to predict the long-term effects. The largest and busiest container port in the United States damaged to the point where the repairs are going to take years. Major earthquake damage all along the San Andreas fault zone, eruptions as far north as Mount Rainier and thank fuck for the tsunami warning systems in Hawaii and along the Asian Pacific Rim because without them the death toll might have doubled."

There was a grim and angry silence, during which the folder slapped down accusingly onto the table.

“You assured me he told us EVERYTHING.”

“He did tell us about that, sir.”

“The hell he did! He told us it was the one option that would NOT get used!”

“He told us that it was the one option that he wouldn’t use, sir."

“I want you to go over every single thing that piece of shit xeno" - the word was expectorated with all the venom of a racial epithet - “has told us and God help me but if there’s even a hint that…. you know what, just get it the fuck done!"

There was a shocked silence as their collective superior barged out of the room. The tension finally broke when the base commander took a deep breath.

“I do believe that man’s head is about to roll.” he commented, exploiting the full sardonic, drawled breadth of his Georgia accent.

Nobody laughed - the devastation in California was simply too raw and solemn for that. But they did all let go of just a little tension.

“Serve him the fuck right.” ‘Carl’ said. “He screwed the pooch.”

“He’s still our boss.” the CO reminded them. “So keep that to yourself and do what he said. Full review.”

“The Strategic Debriefing is unchanged though, right? Six is still… fragile.”

“…Yeah. For now we proceed as planned. But break the news about Diego to him, see how he reacts. I’m still not convinced he’s serious about defecting.”

Date Point: 4y 2m 1w 2d AV

Orlando, Florida, USA, Earth

Gabriel Ares

"As of this time we are assuming 100% casualties within five kilometers of ground zero. All of the addresses you’ve given, sir, are within that radius. I’m so sorry."

“I… Thank you. I’ll pass that along.”

"Well, they might have been outside the lethal radius at the time, so we’ll keep your number on file in case any resident of those addresses turns up alive."

“I appreciate it. Good luck.”

"And you, sir."

The kids were side-by side on the bed, watching the TV with their fingers interlaced and their knuckles white. He couldn’t read either of their expressions - they seemed to have passed beyond grief and into some miserable calm state beyond, where there was nothing to do but drink in the disaster and pray.

Nobody was listening to the physics expert who was expanding at length on the technical difference between a nuclear explosion and this event, which apparently had the hallmarks of some kind of antimatter-based weapon. They were just watching the hole, still glowing and smoking like Hell’s own aperture.

“They’re dead, aren’t they?” Ava stated. It wasn’t that she was calm and euthymic - it was more that she had no more crying left.

Gabriel couldn’t sugar-coat the answer to that question. “FEMA’s assuming so.” he said. “They’ll call me back if there’s… you know, a miracle.”

“They would have called me by now.” she said.

“And Mom?” Adam asked. Gabriel just shook his head. While his ex-wife and son had often been antagonistic and frustrated with each other, he knew that she had still been his mother. He doubted that even she, as alcoholic and obtuse as she could be, would stay out of contact after such a disaster. Of course, the cell network in the area might just be overworked and badly damaged but…

But Gabriel didn’t believe in clinging to forlorn hope.

He put his arm around them both, and they watched.

Date Point: 4y 2m 1w 5d AV

Classified Facility, Earth

Six

His cell had improved beyond all recognition. The bed was downright comfortable and warm, the desk had been supplemented with a well-stocked bookshelf and a musical device.

This last was bliss next to the eternity of sensory deprivation he had suffered. It was apparently outdated by modern human standards, but used in his case because the “CDs” that he loaded into it came in their own cases with information about the music they contained, and the device’s lack of any broadcast ability.

In short, he felt less like a detainee and more like a welcome guest nowadays.

He had spent hours working through the stack of music left for him, swiftly discarding some, enthralled by others. There was one, however, that he kept coming back to.

♪♫“Freude, schoner Gotterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!”♫♪

He was humming along when there was a loud knock on the door.

That part was new, too. The door was no longer being opened by his handlers and his compliance demanded - now they were requesting entry, letting him rule the space a little. It was another liberty, received with a gratitude he was no longer finding so pathetic. If the situation was reversed, he knew full well that any human prisoner in his own custody would not have been treated even a fraction so well.

The hood, earmuffs and restraints were the same, but that part was just sensible. He was still a prisoner, claiming defection, actual motives still uncertain. The logic of his treatment from start to finish was crystal-clear, methodical, oh-so-sensible. He shuffled along, by now trusting his handlers implicitly.

“Hello, Stephen!” he began “What… What happened?”

Stephen had a grim expression as he placed a newspaper on the table between them.

An involuntary groan cascaded down Six’s whole body as he read the headline: “San Diego Destroyed!”

There was a long silence as he read the summary below the full page spread of the huge glowing hole where once had stood the thriving Downtown whose streets had so enthralled him.

“How many?” He croaked, eventually.

“Maybe as many as three million. It’s not clear yet.” Stephen replied.

All the joy and comfort of his newfound privileges fled him, and he withered in his seat.

“There’s no hope now, is there? Your people are going to want justice for this.”

“We are.” Stephen agreed “But peace is still on the table, believe that. Justice doesn’t have to mean genocide.”

“I thought we were smarter than this… I really did.”

He sighed, and rubbed his face. It was amazing how the body language just swept over him - all hosts instilled some of their instinctive behaviours on the occupying mind-state, that part was familiar. But the degree to which the human body imposed its own mannerisms was an order of magnitude more powerful. He doubted he’d ever be the same again for having occupied one.

He looked up and met Stephen’s eye. “What do you need from me?”

Date point: 4y 2m 1w 6d AV

Scotch Creek Extraterrestrial Research Facility, British Columbia, Canada.

Kevin Jenkins

♪♫I don’t know about you, but this looks like imprisonment/ what’s worse is that the prisoners don’t know that they’re prisoners/ even defend the…♫♪

“Jesus fuck, he’s alive…”

“What? Who?”

“It’s Ares.” Kevin answered the phone. “Jenkins. Fuck, Ares, I thought you were dead.”

It was a genuine pleasure to hear that same hispanic lilt come over the line. “Guess I should thank a bullet in the back for that. I went on vacation with my son, we’re in Florida.”

“Well, I’m glad man. I heard about… the thing, that you stopped.”

“Know what happened to him?”

“Sorry, dude. No-can-discuss.”

“If that bastard was respons-”

“No. Can. Discuss. Man, you’re a cop, you should understand this shit.”

“…you’re right. Sorry, Jenkins.”

Ares hung up.

Tremblay gave him an appraising look. The general was off-duty, or at least as much so as he ever got, and nursing one of Kevin’s own home-brews. “He wanted you to break confidentiality?”

Kevin sighed. “Yeah. I mean, I can see why. Poor bastard’s just lost everything, I’d be out to kick ass in his position.”

There was a minute of silent thought before Tremblay spoke again. “So, answer me truthfully. If I hadn’t been sitting here, would you have, I don’t know, dropped a hint or something?”

“Nah, man.” When Tremblay arched an eyebrow. “Maybe a few months ago, maybe. But not after learning about those fucking biodrone things.”

“You don’t think Ares could be one?”

“Hell no! But, y’know, I finally get the whole “loose lips sink ships” thing, right?”

Tremblay nodded, apparently satisfied. “It’s a shame there’s not much we can do for him.” he said. “He deserves something.”

“Hm.”

They drank in silence for a bit, before Kevin asked, apropos of nothing: “The Brits are going public with the Cimbrean colony soon, aren’t they?”

“Day after tomorrow, I think.”

“Hmm…”

Date Point: 4y sm 2w AV

Classified Facility, Earth

Interrogation Team Planning Session

“I wish I could tell you. We’re very much… what was the phrase? ‘In uncharted territory’ now.”

“Can’t you speculate?”

“I’ll try, but Stephen, you need to understand that I am not human. I think that’s the communications failure that led to this.”

“Why does that change anything?”

“Humans are deathworlders. You’re evolved to live on a planet which is routinely dangerous, and you’ve especially evolved to rely on - and exploit - other humans for your survival. While every social sapient obviously has the instincts for guessing at the motives and possible future actions of others of their species, and other sapients, your instinct for it is much more acute. So please, be skeptical of just how accurate my conclusions are likely to be.”

“…Okay. But please try.”

On screen, Six’s recorded self sighed and rubbed his chin.

“I imagine that by now, my personality backup will have been activated. Being as senior as I am, I can tell you how I would react to this news and how it might affect their response.”

“That’s fine.”

“I would be shitting myself. This is a full-blown catastrophe from the Hierarchy’s perspective - our mandate is secrecy and deniability, and now an enclave has been raided and a city-busting self-destruct option deployed because there was no faster alternative that would have guaranteed destruction of all our assets. Seventy-Two has probably been decompiled. They may find him blameless, in which case he will be recompiled but that takes months.”

“Decompiled… so, they’ll have taken him apart and read his memories?”

“Read everything. His decision-making process from start to finish, what he knew, everything he experienced and thought right up until the moment the process was begun. The analysis is thorough beyond description - there is no organic equivalent.”

Six coughed, and thought. “What they will see, is that I went silent, and that some time later, a precisely targeted assault hit Seventy-Two’s base of operations. Frankly Stephen, that operation was a huge mistake on your peoples’ part.”

“Why’s that?”

“You mean besides the two and a half million deaths?” Six snorted. “It means I’m now known to have failed to retain at least some secrets. They certainly won’t suspect that I am now collaborating with you, but If I were my restored self, I would recommend an immediate full decompile and analysis before any merger went ahead. And on top of that, I would insist on the backup being the dominant personality. Releasing me back into the Hierarchy to work from the inside is no longer an option.”

“I think we’re drifting off topic here.”

“You’re right, we are. Sorry. As for what they will do next…” Six shrugged expressively. “We can probably rule out the best-case scenario where they come to the same conclusions I have about our chances. We had already, fortunately, established that any kind of a direct conflict would carry unacceptable risks both of widespread discovery and of your people actually winning. Which means their most likely avenue of attack will be sabotage and politics.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, that they will influence the media to portray humanity as a dangerous threat on par with the Hunters. They will infiltrate the security councils and vote in favour of resolutions that are detrimental to Earth. If they can, they will attempt to return to Earth and do the same thing to your own politicians and media outlets. If your people build starships, they will attempt to spin it as a waste of resources. Seventy-Two’s networks will not have died with his enclave, there will still be avenues they can use to back politicians who might put heavy taxes on space industry, or they might engineer internecine warfare down here to distract you and keep you looking down.”

They stopped the playback.

“That’s not a lot to go on.” Said their new boss. As the CO had correctly guessed, his predecessor had been swiftly (though quietly) fired over San Diego, and the new incumbent was keen to avoid a repeat.

“Or too much.”

“Exactly. I need more than a few educated guesses at their possible strategies if I’m going to form a coherent response.”

“Six hasn’t been in the loop for months now. At this point, we can’t reasonably expect him to give us more than that, sir.”

“Then what use is he to us?”

There was a general looking-around. ‘Carl’ finally broke the silence. “For what it’s worth sir, I’m convinced that he means every word about trying to change the Hierarchy’s approach and become our agent on the inside.”

“You think we should release him?”

“It’s a huge gamble, but at this point, we’ve got every truly relevant bit of information, and the rest is speculation that we can probably do for ourselves. And I think that gamble would pay off.”

Heads nodded.

“I’ll take that under advisement. Is there anything more of use in that recording?”

“You’ve got the gist of it, sir. He was fairly consistent in his opinion of how they’ll respond. He did, however, namedrop a potential individual of interest."

“Oh? Who?”

“Nobody human. He thinks they’re where Seventy-two got his ‘biodrone’ implants from.”

“Intriguing. I think I’d better call my British opposite number.”

“The Brits? Why?”

The boss chuckled. “Let’s just say they got their hands on something that makes Scotch Creek look like a scifi convention…”

Date Point: 4y 2m 3w AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

“I call.”

They laid their hands on the table.

“Okay, that’s two pair threes and nines for the Englishman, and… Three Queens for Togo-san. Sorry, Cavendish.”

“Bollocks!”

“Pay up, ya pommie bastard, he won fair and square.”

Heikichi grinned uncertainly, still a little uncomfortable with the way the Drews casually insulted each other at every opportunity, but by now used to it and well aware that it was all friendliness.

The truth was, Drew C and Drew M were now fast friends, with the stoic and efficient Brit serving to neatly offset Drew Martin’s antipodean ebullience. On the job, both men were complete professionals. Off duty, they were the hub of the base’s intercorporate social life, running as they did a little unofficial venture - known universally as “the Speakeasy” - in a corner of the survey drone service hangar. There was no alcohol to be had: everybody needed to be sharp at all times in case of emergencies, but it was amazing just how entertaining fruit juice could get if you knew a few secrets.

There was a general cheering from the Mitsubishi contingent as Drew handed over his chips then stood up to go mix a Triple-B - a “Blue-Balled on the Beach”.

He paused as the facility-wide tannoy chimed.

“All mining and construction section chiefs, please report to Meeting Room A. Mining and construction chiefs to Meeting Room A, thank you.”

Drew M just shrugged at him. They left the Speakeasy in the capable hands of Emma Henderson, one of the BAE engineers whose job revolve around keeping all the air inside the facility, and jogged up the stairs to the third floor of the survey drone hangar module and took the well-travelled shortcut through the misplaced Cargill Hydroponics Module.

The CHM’s managers had wisely decided to install a clear tunnel to keep traffic separate from the experimental crops, rather than ban the use of one of the most convenient routes through the station, meaning that for a minute or so they walked surrounded on all sides by growing plants, greenery and botanical research. The accidental placement of the CHM at the heart of the facility rather than on its outskirts had proved to be a real morale-booster - everybody seemed to love it, and there were always a few off-duty workers just hanging out in the tunnel, enjoying the sight of life flourishing in the experimental conditions.

From there, one of the many intersection modules, each of which played a vital role in damage control and life support. They hung a right through one of the three E*ON Power Modules, another intersection module, and finally into the Facility Administration and Resources Module.

It was a running gag on base that the companies which comprised the Ceres LLC had jointly and equally paid for this particular module because none of them individually wanted to buy the FARM.

Meeting Room A was just like any other meeting or boardroom. The same table, the same chairs. The large, expensive and structurally compromising windows seemed like an anachronism in the otherwise utilitarian Ceres Base. There was little point in having a breathtaking view of the inside of an irregular concrete dome, after all.

But eventually, that dome would be the innermost of a triple pressure hull 3D- printed in concrete made of Ceres’ own regolith. Eventually, landscaping and lakes and a simulacrum of a park on Earth would fill the open space inside the domes, complete with a projected sky and a day/night cycle. People could endure confinement inside the pressurised modules only for so long before the desire to get outside and feel a fresh breeze on their face could grow distracting. The facility intended to have that opportunity available for morale purposes quite early on, as soon as there were several sturdy layers of airtight concrete between the fragile human occupants and the voracious nothing outside.

The Drews weren’t the first to arrive, nor the last. They settled in at one end of the table and swapped small-talk and speculation while everybody filed in, some still dirty and sweaty from hardsuit time.

The last to arrive were the people who had presumably called the meeting. Only the very senior management wore suits on Ceres, and these four did - the representative managers for BHP-B, BAE and Skanska, along with the facility administrator, Adele Park, who did a quick head-count and nodded.

“Thank you all for coming.” she told them. “Before we begin, I need to confirm that the content of this meeting is subject to your non-disclosure agreements. Is everyone on board with that?”

There was a general nodding, and so she stood aside for the BAE rep.

“Last week, BAE Systems successfully bid on a contract for the British Ministry of Defence to begin construction of a fleet of starships.” he said. Drew C raised a hand. “Yes?”

“Last I checked that barrier’s still out there.” he pointed out.

“It is, but the customer doesn’t seem to care. May I continue?”

“Right, sorry.”

“The contract is for three spaceborne destroyers. We were fortunate in that we’ve been adapting our existing blueprints and coming up with new ones pretty much since the Second Space Race began, so we’ve got the plans. We just need somewhere to build them.” he indicated the BHP-B and Skanska reps. “That’s where our friends in the mining and construction industries come in.”

“Ceres is an ideal location for a dry-dock. We have existing infrastructure, none of the debris that would threaten a shipyard built in orbit over Earth, it’s a low-gravity environment and there’s a ready supply of raw materials right here, rolling straight out of the ore processor. We just need one built.”

He handed over to the Billiton rep, who activated the wall screen, showing off what were, to Drew C’s informed eye, clearly some pretty hasty plans.

“Stage one is going to be open-cast mining of Ceres itself.” he said. “There’s a lot of water-ice not far below us, that’s what we’ll mostly be digging through, but we can use it. We’ve already got a small supply pit meeting this facility’s water demands: if we expand that dig into the drydock pit then we’ll generate enough of a surplus to last us for years. Yes?”

This was in response to a construction team leader who was asking why the shipyard couldn’t just be built on the surface.

“Sinking it below the surface will protect the construction work from meteoroids and solar radiation. As a side benefit, the long-term plan for Ceres Base includes subterranean expansion, and the wall of the shipyard pit would serve very well for getting that expansions started, when we get that far. Not to mention the aforementioned valuable water.”

He glanced at his notes. “While the mine itself is going to be pretty standard, we’ll be working in vacuum and weak gravity, which are going to complicate things. Were reassigning Andrew Cavendish and Andrew Martin to foreman the project.”

“Really? Us?” Drew C asked.

The rep chuckled. “If you weren’t aware, Drew, as of three days ago you’re actually the man with the most EVA experience in the history of the human race.”

“That’s… news to me.”

“Well, it’s true. That thruster assembly you constructed on Monday was your eighteenth spacewalk and took you past the eighty-three hour mark. You’ve walked more often and for longer than Anatoly Solovyev. There’s nobody with more EVA experience, and that means we need you watching out for the miners when we bring them in.”

There was a general murmur of agreement and congratulations. Clearly the milestone had gone overlooked by everybody else as well. Drew had other things on his mind.

“If I’ve been out there that long, how’s my radiation count?” he asked.

“You’re fine. Those Red Bull suits have some imported alien radiation shielding technology in them. You got a worse dose when you were cutting granite back in two thousand five.”

Drew didn’t know if he exactly trusted alien technology - when it came to radiation, he felt a lot better with several meters of concrete protecting him, rather than some flimsy xeno solution, but he shrugged it off. The company stood to lose far too much if they lied to him about his dose.

“Okay. Do I get a raise?”

There was general laughter. Finally somebody was asking the important questions.

“Yes, Drew, you get a raise.” The rep smiled, rolling his eyes.

“Bloody lovely. I’ll draw up our safety guidelines and training.” he promised.

“Good. Anyway, once the pit’s at size, installing the gantries and structures to turn it into a shipyard is Skanska’s job. Tom, you want to take over?”

Drew only half-listened as the briefing continued, and barely registered Drew M nudging him in the elbow and murmuring “Good on yer, mate.”

He was getting paid more, and that meant he was a step closer to that tropical island.

Date Point: 4y 3m AV

Amnag-Dwuz Biotech Head Offices

Planet Origin, Corti Directorate Core World

It took less than a second for Director Nmrb’s life to change drastically. He went, during that second, from reading productivity reports and financial information, to falling out of his chair and fouling himself in terror as the expensive imported Cq’twj-wood door of his office - a wood renowned for its sterngth and solidity - was physically ripped out of its frame without there having been any kind of a hint from any source that there might be something outside of it that might wish to do so.

He crawled under the desk, mentally pulsing the panic alarm signal through his cybernetics.

The desk was physically picked up and, to add further insult to the scenario, was flung across the room with contemptuous ease. This did have the dubiously positive side-effect of revealing the identity of his assailant - five humans.

He would have vented again, if there’d been anything left in his system to manage it. Each one of the deathworlders was wrapped head to toe in equipment that had a dull, functional appearance to it, and carrying their weapons with apparent ease when he doubted that he himself would have been able to lift them unassisted.

“Fuckin’ ‘ell, boys!” Exclaimed the biggest one of them, probably the one that had accelerated his table across the room, where two of the others were using it for cover against any potential targets that might come through the door. “And I thought the fuckin’ robo-worms smelled bad!”

“Mind on the job. You. Name.” The new speaker, clearly a ranking individual, addressed Nmrb directly.

“N-Nmrb!” Nmrb squeaked. The big, loud one was carrying a gun that was a good half as large again as the others, and yet Nmrb’s translation implant was tentatively interpreting his body language - the face, sadly, was impossible to see behind the cloth and goggles - as nonchalant good humour.

“Good. You’re being abducted. Do not argue, do not resist, do not try to call for aid. We will know if you do. We don’t intend to hurt you, but the strength difference means you’ll be safer if we don’t have to restrain you. Do you understand?”

“Contact!” one of the others reported. “Robo-worms, three of them.”

Nmrb fought his emotions under control. The Annebenellin guards in this building were equipped for human suppression, this should be a short fight.

It was.

“Drop ’em!”

The human who had reported contact fired his weapon. It chatter-spat three bursts of firepower. He did not need to shoot any more than that.

“Clear.” he reported, in a flat, calm tone of voice.

The leader turned his attention back to Nmrb. “Do you understand?” he repeated.

They left via the roof, where what was unmistakably a hunter dropship decloaked in the ripping winds, just long enough to collect them.

The second they were aboard and their weapons made safe, the team diverted their full attention to him. Nmrb took a look around the interior. Hunter though it had once been, the ship had obviously been badly damaged at some point and then hybridized with human technology to get it spaceworthy again. The interior was cramped and rugged, with straps and netting holding a variety of equipment snug against the walls and ceiling wherever there was room. Despite this, there was still plenty of space inside, a legacy of the fact that humans were physically much more compact than Hunters.

The commanding human produced a cloth and a flask of water, which Nmrb used to accomplish the humiliating process of cleaning himself. One of the soldiers just opened the ramp and threw the soiled thing out once he was done, apparently unperturbed by the terminal-velocity drop outside, or the angry wind that snatched at him.

They had given him time to think at least. Time to recover his wits and his dignity.

“You have questions for me.” he said, exercising the full extent of his species’ emotional discipline.

“Our commanding officer does. We’re just the collection detail.” said the leader.

“And your commanding officer is…?”

“Always angry.” said the big one. The humans laughed, even the leader.

They were headed into orbit, and that alone troubled Nmrb. While the Hunter raiding-ship was especially designed to infiltrate even heavily-defended words, relying on its tiny size and cloak to evade detection, nothing that might loiter in orbit could possibly do so for very long without the use of ultra-advanced cloaking technology. Even the puny dimple in local spacetime made by its own mass gravity would have to be smoothed out.

Nevertheless, they landed, without having gone to FTL, and without having re- entered the atmosphere.

There was a detail of more human soldiers on deck, plus a human in a different uniform. She stepped forward smartly and addressed Nmrb directly.

“Welcome aboard HMS Caledonia." She said. “My name is Lieutenant Ellen McDaniel: As your advocate, my job is to see to it that your rights as an intelligent being are not violated during your stay here.”

“Why am I here?” Nmrb demanded.

“You have been detained on suspicion of conspiracy to perform an act of genocide.” McDaniel told him. “Furthermore we suspect that you are complicit in-”

"Genocide?!" Nmrb exclaimed. McDaniel didn’t so much as blink.

“As I was saying, you are also suspected of complicity in the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction within the bounds of the city of San Diego on Earth, leading directly to the death of more than two million individuals.”

She handed him a datapad. “Your arrest is legal under section nine hundred and seven point two, paragraph twelve of the three hundred and third resolution of the Dominion Justice Council.”

“You aren’t Dominion signatories.” Nmrb snapped, scanning the datapad.

“The right of non-members to exercise Dominion law against signatory members is outlined in section…”

“Yes, yes…” Nmrb was familiar with the principle. It was both irritating and alarming to see that the humans had become so well-informed about the minutiae of Dominion law, so quickly.

He pressed his thumb to the biometric patch at the datapad’s corner, confirming his legal status - detained for questioning, but not yet on trial, with a maximum duration to his detainment no longer than three standard diurnals, and not a short unit duration longer.

“Thank you. Please follow me.”

The Caledonia‘s layout had a degree of familiarity to it, but some unique twists. It was almost a Corti ship in its construction, but there were elements to the architecture and configuration that were more in keeping with Alliance shipbuilding principles. Whoever had originally built it had obviously not been human, however: the deathworlders’ aftermarket modifications cut through the ship like a sour note, crude but sturdy in contrast to the technological elegance that surrounded them. The most striking change was the introduction of thick steel doors at regular intervals along the corridors, operated physically and probably requiring more strength than most beings could muster. It was clearly a counter-boarding measure, though Nmrb couldn’t for a moment envision who - or what - would be so self- destructively reckless as to board any vessel known to contain more than one human.

Their tour was not a long one. McDaniel led him into a room whose original purpose had probably not involved the human-built furniture that dominated the middle - a large oval table and several chairs.

“Mr. Nmrb, sirs.” McDaniel said, impressing him with her ability to pronounce his name correctly.

The room contained several more humans, these ones very plainly commanders to judge by the apparent structure of the rank insignia they wore. The one anomaly was wearing no obvious uniform at all, just patterned dark green lower-limb garments, a black torso-garment, and a dark green head covering with a badge on the front depicting a blade bisecting two parallel blue lines, and the motto “By Strength And Guile”.

“Right.” he said. None of the others spoke, giving the impression that this… under-identified individual either outranked them, or held their esteem. He flopped a large hardcopy printout onto the table. “D’you recognise these fookin’ things?”

Nmrb examined the image, eager to co-operate and be returned to the planet below.

The things in the image were a little hard to place for a second, but then he interrogated his memory cybernetic, and felt dread settle on him.

He was looking at a complete set of the custom neural implants. These ones had been carefully removed from their recipient’s brain and preserved as best as crude Terran surgery could allow, but the delicate nanofilaments that actually did the work of interfacing with the recipient’s neural structure on the ultrafine level were all unsurprisingly severed. There was no way the patient could have survived their excision, assuming they had been alive at all when they went on the operating table.

“Those are not from our standard catalogue.” he said, stalling for time.

“That’s not what I asked. I asked if you recognise them.”

The Corti reputation for intellect was not accidental, nor the product of bluff and propaganda, and Nmrb was sharp even by Corti standards. He resurrected knowledge and skills that he had not been called upon to exercise in many years, and analysed the items in the picture with a cyberneticist’s eye, rather than an administrator’s.

“This one appears to be a custom motor neurone bridging implant.” he said. “It seems to have been specialized for installation in your own species, but-”

“I didn’t ask you what they are." the human repeated. Something about his tone of voice shot straight into the primitive depths of Nmrb’s hindbrain and sent desperate signals to the effect that something very dangerous was angry at him. “I asked you whether you fookin’ recognise them."

“I d-don’t.” Nmrb stammered, lying.

“That’s funny, because they’ve got all the signatures of having come the labs YOU worked in and administrate.”

“In which case,” suggested one of the other humans, this one wearing insignia which if Nmrb understood the logic correctly - indicated that he was the highest-ranking officer. “Allowing him to continue his analysis of their function may be worth our while.”

Nmrb decided that he liked this one, even as he recognised the strategy of using the voice of aggression and the voice of calm reason in opposition against one another to pressure him.

He cleared his throat, and bowed slightly to the advocate of sensibility. “As I was saying. This next one is… a top of the line interspecies communication implant, we don’t even sell these yet. This third one look like a… neuroplasticity inhibitor?”

“You sound confused by that.”

“Neuroplasticity inhibitors are built to correct a disorder that affects about one in every eight thousand Corti.” Nmrb explained. “I can think of no reason why one would be installed in a human. This fourth one appears to be a high- end augmentation package. Those are highly customisable so I cannot tell you its exact function, but typical options would include cybernetic instant- access memory, logical sub-processors, focus and attention boosters, or even communications. We currently have no production models of any of these implants suitable for installation in a human.”

“Why not?”

“Economically unviable given the quarantine of your homeworld.”

“But you could build these.”

“We did build these, it seems. Just from looking at a picture, I cannot give you more information than I already have."

“So this is a custom order. We will need to know who the client is.”

“And how am I supposed to explain this breach of client confidentiality to the board?”

The unmarked one with the surly attitude spoke again. “The ‘client’ is responsible for the destruction of a city on Earth, and we’re fookin’ angry about that.” He snarled. It really was incredible how this being’s anger seemed to directly bypass every refined Corti mental trick and intimidate the lingering animal part. “D’you think that explanation might work?”

“Given your… unexpected and alarming apparent ability to operate away from your homeworld despite the existence of a supposedly impenetrable barrier, I’m sure that this information will have… some effect, yes.” Nmrb agreed, finding it quite hard to retain his composure under the human’s oh-so-carnivorous glare.

“Good.”

Date Point: 4y 3m AV

HMS Myrmidon, in orbit around Cimbrean.

“Well, it’s official. The existence of this colony is now public knowledge, both on Earth and out in the greater galaxy.”

Sir Jeremy Sandy seemed remarkably well-rested considering how hectic his last few days must have been. Preparing the colony to go public, recording a press statement, finalizing the provisional draft of the opening proposals for the first Colonial Council, a formal naming ceremony for Folctha and so much more should have taken a real toll on him. Instead, the Old Man - everybody referred to him as that, respectfully - seemed composed and steady.

It was the considered opinion of Captain David Manning that the Old Man must have absolutely cast-iron discipline about his sleep schedule.

It was a skill he himself had never learned, and he was constantly suffering for it, but there was just so much to do. Assimilating the two plundered Hierarchy vessels - since renamed Caledonia and Myrmidon - into the Royal Navy was always going to have been an immense task, especially given the total lack of appropriate orbital facilities to refit them, anywhere in humanity’s controlled territory.

That hadn’t changed. While Earth’s stipend from the Dominion as a newly- Contacted race, plus the compensation settlement for the Enclosure, had been more than enough to afford a top-class shipyard, the fact was that securing such a thing from either side would have upset the delicate neutrality that was the Global Representative Assembly’s choice of policy.

Besides, there was good reason not to trust the alien tech. So much of it was unknown, so little of it operating at standards of safety or redundancy which would have satisfied even the most slapdash of human engineers. Thin single- skin hulls held together by forcefields were, presumably, at least safe enough to run a major interstellar economy or two on, but they didn’t come close to the rigorous demands of the British Armed Services.

All of which meant that such infrastructure would need to be bootstrapped on Earth, which would take months at the bare minimum.

So, the ships were effectively being refit in flight. Even having large chunks powered down, depressurised, replaced and powered up again. They were barely recognisable as being the same sleek vessels that had first arrived at Cimbrean months ago. Gone were the quantum reactor cores, spirited away to Earth for study and replaced by vast banks of supercapacitors. Gone too were the coilguns, plasma cannons and missile tubes. The outer hulls, once mirror- polished artistic marvels, had been methodically stripped off, reshaped, sanded, and slathered in matte-black RADAR-absorbent stealthing paint. That alone had taken the crew literal months of angle-grinding and wire-brushing, made all the more complicated by the fact that, helped though they were by the artificial gravity, they still had to work in spacesuits. Which meant training them first.

Caledonia’s urgent mission had pulled her away long before the refit was completed. There was still a cloud of marooned hull panels orbiting gently at her anchorage. Myrmidon was more intact - her stealthing was complete, and the first two of a total of seven Skymaster guns had now been installed, powered and connected to their magazines, as had the first of a trio of Phalanx CIWS.

Much had been kept, of course. The cloak remained, as did the single quantum core necessary to power it indefinitely. The ship’s “keel” - the thick structural spine to which the engines and hull were both anchored - had been reinforced rather than replaced. The small craft bays were untouched, though everybody wanted some kind of physical door to supplement the atmosphere retention field. The general internal layout was completely unchanged, except for having been stripped of anything remotely resembling electronics. The plumbing and electrical wiring was similarly untouched - even aliens, it seemed, couldn’t screw up the basic logistics of getting water and electricity safely throughout the ship without their leaking or meeting.

It was an immense task, only just now beginning to approach the end of Phase One. It would be another year of hard work before Myrmidon was completely renovated to the satisfaction of her captain and his superiors.

“We could have done with another week.” he told Sir Jeremy. “After that, all the weapons will be active.”

“The system shield is our first line of defence anyway. With all respect, Captain, two half-rebuilt ships won’t hold off the Great Hunt if it comes down on us.”

“True.” Manning allowed. “but I’d still feel safer with more firepower.”

“A week isn’t so very long.”

“In Civic Planning, maybe. Anyway, thanks for the update. Good luck with the Press.”

He returned to his paperwork. There was always so much to do…

Date Point: 4y 3m 1w AV

Independent Trade Station 104: “Auspice of Prosperity”

"The whole station?"

"Oh yes. All because they allowed a few humans to live there."

The whispering pair spared a shifty glance in Miranda’s direction, clearly thinking they were out of earshot, and were being covert. Maybe they would have been, with any other species.

She tucked into a nutrient sphere, one of the four on her plate. The non- flavour and non-texture of the universal foodstuff was at least better than the bad taste being left in her mouth by the overheard conversation.

She ignored it, slipping into her inhale-pause-exhale-pause meditation, until one phrase slipped past her attention.

"… should throw her out the airlock."

“Murder me? Really?”

She wouldn’t have chosen to speak. If the decision had been conscious, she would have kept silent. But her weary outrage outpaced her discipline, and the words sang on the air, loud enough to bring conversation in the entire dining hall to instant silence.

The one who had said it - a Kwmbwrw female - both shrank and bristled.

Damage done. In for an inch, in for a mile. She stood, carrying her chair with her, set it up at the two conspirators’ table, reversed and straddled. “Care to tell me how killing a fellow sophont to save your own hide is any better than what the Hunters are doing?”

The other conspirator - this one a relatively slim Locayl - cleared his throat, a gesture held in common with humans.

“My friend Gwnrwt here has lost family to the Hunters.” he rumbled, expression conciliatory. “The subject makes her-”

“Don’t apologise on my behalf, Golron.” the Kwmbwrw snapped. “I can tidy my own burrow, thank you."

“As you say. If you’ll excuse me while I fetch a second helping then…” the Locayl stood, then addressed Miranda. “Would you like a measure of water? I understand your species need a lot of it.”

“That’s very thoughtful.” Miranda thanked him. “Yes please.”

Gwnwrt watched him go, then sneered at her. “Expecting an apology, human?”

“How would you feel if total strangers were talking about spacing you just for being a Kwmbwrw?”

“Kwmbwrw don’t endanger everybody on the station just by being here.”

“I’ve got to be somewhere."

“Out the airlock is somewhere.”

Miranda was pleased to see that despite her Kwmbwrw antagonist’s bravado, a cool stare still made her very uncomfortable. “I don’t even know why I bothered.” she snapped, standing. "

Beings scattered as she strode out of the room, instinctively recoiling from the sight of an angry Deathworlder.

She was impressed when the Locayl - Golron - caught up with her down the corridor. His longer legs at least gave him the burst of speed to catch up with her angry stride, though it left him thoroughly out of breath.

“What do you want?” She snapped.

“My friend is…” he began, wheezing.

“A hell-bitch?”

“That… didn’t translate.”

She relaxed. He had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to catch up, the least she could do was hear him out.

“I wasn’t being kind about her.”

“I… guessed… As much. Whew.” He straightened up, still breathing heavily but clearly more in control again now.

“What do you want, Golron?”

“She thought you were staying here for some selfish reason when there’s an alternative available.”

“What alternative?”

“I thought so! You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“I was wondering why you would stay here when people like Gwnwrt must make life so hard, and when the Great Hunt is out there scouring for humans and devouring innocents on places like the Exos station, but then it occurred to me that maybe you haven’t heard.”

“Heard what, Golron?" Miranda practically burst.

“Your people have a colony now. A place where you could settle among your own kind, or maybe even go home. No more prejudice, no more…” he looked back down the corridor.

“No more hypocrisy? If I’d lost family to the Hunters, I would never suggest throwing somebody else to them.”

He sighed. “I really am sorry.”

“Don’t be. You didn’t say it.”

They stood in silence for a moment as she thought. “Did you hear this colony’s name?”

“Folctha, on the planet Cimbrean. They announced it a few [days] ago.”

“I bet the Dominion didn’t like that.”

“The planet in question is on the far side of the Celzi front line, and the Alliance have vocally supported your species’ right to self-determination.” Golron told her. “I’m sure the Dominion is very unhappy indeed.”

She laughed, although it was spoiled just a little as Golron recoiled from the flash of teeth. Nobody seemed to understand smiling. And it would be nice…

“Thank you, Golron. I think I might just go there.”

“It’s probably the best thing for everyone.” he agreed. “I’m sorry we weren’t clear with you earlier. We just gossiped rather than actually talking with you.”

“Well, you came through in the end. You and I are fine. Gwnwrt can still go fuck herself though.”

“That seems…”

“Anatomically impossible, I know.” she finished the all-too-familiar objection wearily.

She definitely needed to be back among her own kind.

Fortunately, she had just enough saved up. It would be a one-way trip, but the important part was, she could afford it.

Date Point 4y 4m 3w AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

“No! NO!!” Drew elbowed his way between the new miners and singled out the culprit. “You do not just check your own seal and trust it. You check your friend’s, and get him to check yours, and then you both get a third opinion!"

He leaned in and tapped the newcomer’s faceplate to punctuate his next sentence, pleased to see that they had gone pale inside their hardsuit. “The alternative (tap) is that you die (tap). *Come on, this is the most basic stuff, you already went over this down on Earth!"

“Sorry, boss.” the offender mumbled.

“Don’t give me ‘sorry’.” he growled, grabbing the helmet and yanking. It popped right off. “If you had tried to go out there, we’d have had to blow the emergency repressure on the airlock, and that costs seven thousand pounds and a couple of burst eardrums. Get. Your seal. Checked."

“Yes, boss.”

“Right. Get that helmet back on.”

He watched as the newbie did so, and as his team members checked and double- checked the seal, to everyone’s apparent satisfaction.

“Right. Time to head out there. Now remember, outside the modules the surface gravity is only point-two-seven M slash S. That’s point zero-two-nine Gs. So until we’re clear of any overhead structures, we are going to shuffle, keeping our feet on the floor. Walking normally will bounce you into the air like a bloody ball. If you jump, you aren’t coming back down again for minutes. Your SAFER pack is for emergencies only. Is everyone clear?"

There was a general muttering of “yes boss”. He didn’t bother to ask them to sound off - this wasn’t the military - but he made eye contact with every single one to make sure they weren’t just agreeing by rote.

“Fine. Let’s go.”

There was, he knew, a lot of work still to do. It took time for people to intuitively recognise the difference between weight and mass. It took even longer for them to finally understand that working in a vacuum and under microgravity was actually harder work than down on Earth. Only two - and these two he knew were going to turn out to be excellent members of the team - had started their hardsuit careers by spending time wearing the suit and customising it with tape and padding and a little swatch of velcro inside the helmet and a stylus or piece of wire on one of their fingers. The others would be pinched and blistered by the time they came back indoors in a few hours’ time, distracted and maddened by the inevitable itches, and frustrated by the thick gloves’ inability to handle delicate work.

He caught a glimpse of the artwork that one of the two customizers had done on the side of his helmet. It was actually a sticky decal, a classic trashy pin- up of a rock chick with tattoos holding up a prominent full house. The scrollwork underneath read “Aces and Kings”.

Trashy and cliched though the decal was, it was a sensible idea for immediate identification, and Drew decided he would get one of his own as soon as possible.

The airlock cycled, and the newbies took their first steps into vacuum.

In his heart of hearts, Drew couldn’t have been happier.

Date Point: 4y 4m 3w AV

Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Earth.

Gabriel Ares

Adam and Ava had school. Neither felt up to it, but Gabriel had put his foot down. They still needed an education, and they needed a return to something resembling normalcy for the sake of their mental health.

Phoenix had heard the death of San Diego. The shockwave had faded to the point of only cracking a few windows and setting off some car alarms by the time it washed over central Arizona, but it had still been loud - nobody in the city had failed to notice it, with even Phoenix’s deaf residents feeling the noise deep inside their chests.

It was tough for Gabriel, too. He didn’t know anybody in this city, pretty much all of his friends and living relatives had lived in San Diego. Aside from a few distant cousins in Guadalajara and the handful of SDPD officers who had, like him, been out of town on the day their city was killed, there was nobody left.

Phoenix, he suspected, was just temporary. But he had no idea where would come next. And after moving all their stuff in and getting the kids off to school, he was finding himself sitting around watching movies and resisting the urge to drink. That way, he knew, led self-destruction.

He was lost in a black mood when his phone rang, the default wooden-ish staccato notes taking a few seconds to percolate through Bruce Willis fleeing the cops in a flying taxi.

“Hello?”

“Hello there, is this detective Gabriel Ares?” The voice had a British accent.

“*Si. *Retired.”

“Sir, my name is Sean Howard, I work for the Cimbrean colonial administration. Your name was forwarded to me by a Mr. Jenkins at the Scotch Creek research facility?”

“Jenkins? Yes, I know him. What’s he doing forwarding my name to you?”

“With the colony having gone public and opened its doors to potential settlers, we’re beginning to establish our civilian law enforcement. You came highly recommended.”

“Me?” Gabriel shifted uncomfortably as his abused spine twinged at him. “Why? I’m not exactly fighting fit any more.”

“We still need a chief of police. Somebody to handle policy, set up our police service, and to take an investigative role if - God forbid - we need it. You won’t be expected to go chasing anywhere.”

“So it’s a desk job, then?”

“A highly-paid and senior one in the colonial administration, complete with accomodation for you and any dependents.”

“I’ve got two teenagers under my care.”

“We have a school, sir. We’re trying to attract families, we take education seriously.”

“And why would I want to leave Earth?”

“That’s for you to decide, sir. But we intend to build a good life out of here. A fresh start, the model for humanity’s future. I can’t tell you whether or not you’re interested in being involved in that.”

Gabriel thought about it. After a few moments of silence, Howard spoke. “It’s a big decision, you’re under no pressure detective, but with your qualifications and background we’d love to have you. I’ll let you think about it.”

“Thank you.”

Howard hung up.

Gabriel was still thinking about it when the kids got home.

Date Point: 4y 6m AV

Folctha, Cimbrean

Ava Rios

“-na take Fuck me!!"

Adam’s hands jerked up in alarm as the world around them blinked. One instant, it was the dull concrete and steel interior of a hangar somewhere in Canada, and the next… well, a palace. Or at least the glass and steel structure on the lawn of a palace that housed Folctha’s end of the Jump Array.

The architecture was a lot strange, but elegant - all curves and loops and domes, looking more like something that had been gently coaxed out of the landscape rather than built atop it.

She giggled at his alarm, and it surprised even her - ever since her parents had died in the San Diego blast, mirth had been hard to find, but it sprang back suddenly, watching her boyfriend jump out of his skin at the sudden change.

“Language.” she teased. He blushed, noticing that others in the colonist group were grinning at him, although most were also clearly recovering from their own surprise.

She smiled at his back as he scowled and hoisted the bags that contained all his and Gabriel’s worldly possessions. Gabriel protested that he could carry his own load, but Adam knew better - the older Ares, a handsome and grey- haired mirror-image of his son, was too stubborn to admit that his injury still impeded him - long hours in the gym had gone a long way toward restoring his fitness, but the bullet had done permanent harm that would never quite go away.

Ava wheeled her own bag behind her, taking in the sights as they emerged through a short tunnel, passing through a gossamer orange curtain of light that tingled her skin and made her teeth feel strange.

The air beyond was cool. Cold, even. Not the biting chill she’d felt during their few days at Scotch Creek, that invaded her clothing and pinched at her skin, but the cold of a crisp spring morning, though it looked like full daytime. The air tasted… sweet, almost. There was only a tang of wood smoke on it, which if anything only enhanced the certainty that this was a place that humanity had yet to leave any kind of a permanent footprint on.

The sun was strange, too. It was… more orange, slightly. A little larger. It made the place look warm, even while the air felt chilly.

There was a smattering of cheers and applause from a small crowd that had gathered to greet the new arrivals. A silver-haired man in a suit was shaking hands and offering warm welcomes.

They’d been prepared for the cold, of course. Cimbrean’s immigration policy included funding to buy some rugged clothes suitable for the colony. Out of their own pockets, she and Adam had paid for some customization, with the result that their jackets bore matching patches on the sleeve - skyscrapers and a phoenix, and the legend "De las Cenizas“.

Avoiding the governor who was warmly shaking Gabriel’s hand and welcoming him to Folctha, she looked around.

To her relief, she immediately spotted that a second group had formed off on the sidelines - Folctha’s junior citizens, some of whom waved at her when they saw her notice them. She tapped Adam on the arm to get his attention, pointed them out, and together they broke away from the group to meet their new peers.

It was quite the mix. Most were obviously English - there was just something about how they stood, did their hair, what they wore that screamed it, even before they spoke - and quite the age range, too. She and Adam were probably toward the older end of the spectrum - the youngest was clearly only about nine years old.

There wasn’t a lot of makeup being worn, she noticed, becoming suddenly and absurdly conscious of her own, subtle though it was. In the last couple of years, makeup had started to become more of a male thing in schools too - the boys had turned out to be just as vain as the girls once the makeup companies had broken a generations-old prejudice and started marketing foundation at the adolescent male market. It had been met with ridicule and even outrage among some parents, but had caught on.

It was slightly strange to realise that now, the only other person wearing any makeup at all in this little group was her boyfriend.

There were introductions, some stereotypically British apologies about being “terrible at names” and apologising in advance for getting them wrong… really, it was just like going to a new school, though as far as she could tell it was refreshingly free of drama.

“So, what are you guys going to be doing?” she asked.

“It’s all apprenticeships right now.” one of the girls - Gwen - told her. “But the colony’s not really settled yet, it’s only a couple of months old. I was thinking I’d go for nursing, maybe doctor, but it depends on what we need.”

“Botany.” Kieron said, firmly.

“I’m already doing it. I’m the colony’s only journalist!” That part had been obvious. Sara - at the absolute most, only fourteen years old - was wearing a big dSLR camera and a tablet computer in a satchel on her hip and had been taking notes and pictures throughout. “What about you?” She asked of Adam. She had that popped-hip, interested look that Ava knew well, so she nestled up to him and took his arm, just to make sure both of them were clearly off-limits. Some of the guys had been looking at her with interest too.

If he noticed the attention, Adam gave no sign of it. “Law enforcement.” he said. “It’s what I was planning on doing back on Earth.”

“Oh, wait, your dad’s our new police chief, isn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“What about you, Ava?”

“Like, uh, Gwen said, I guess it depends on what we need. I mean, the plans I had don’t really… I mean, like, who needs a theatrical makeup artist here?”

“Go for it anyway.” Big Jack shrugged. “Can you do hair?”

“Uh, yeah. A bit.”

“There you go then.”

“I don’t know, I never saw myself as a stylist.” Ava protested. “I like the girly stuff, but not, like, enough to do it for a living.”

“Well, if nothing else, it’s something to do until you find somebody to apprentice under, and you could earn some money.” Sara said. She spoke in a hummingbird blur, so fast that it was sometimes hard to tell where one word end and the next began, and was constantly being told to slow down by the others. “I mean I know my mum would love to get her hair done and her nails and some of the men have really ewww beards now so maybe you could learn to shave too, you could make a lot of money just helping people stay…"

“Hey, no pressure.” Adam interrupted her, hugging Ava round her waist. “We don’t need to rush in, we don’t even know where we’re sleeping yet.”

“Oh, your house is all built and ready!” That was Little Jack, the youngest kid in the group who’d so far remained silent and let the bigger kids gossip. He turned to Sara, whose identical brown hair suggested they were siblings. “Can I show them? Please?”

Sara laughed indulgently. “Oh kaaay" she mock-relented. “I’ll come with you. See you tonight, guys!”

They walked away, Little Jack running forward and then occasionally stopping to grouse about how slow they were being.

“Were you told where you’re staying?” she asked.

“We were told there’d be a house. Dad was pretty spare on the details.” Adam admitted.

“Not just any house, you two are getting your own!” Sara said. “You’re so lucky, I have to stay with Mum and Dad and Jack.”

“Our own place? Like, just us? I figured we’d be staying with Gabriel…” Ava glanced back down the road to where Ares senior was still meet-and-greeting with, presumably, the colony’s most important people. He’d sunk gratefully onto a camp stool while he talked.

“Oh, he’s up on Palace Rise.” Sara said, pointing toward the half-rebuilt palace. “All the admin people live up there. You’re down here on Delaney Row, near the school.”

“Delaney Row?” Ava asked.

“You’ve got street names already?” Adam followed up.

“Yeah!” Sara said. “Jen Delaney was the first governor here. She handed it over to Sir Jerry and left. I heard the soldiers talking about her, they all think she’s really badass and they say she can shoot a gun really accurately and she told them all off one time because they saw her naked and were staring but she didn’t care, so they voted to name one of the housing zones after her.”

“Voted where?” Adam asked her.

“The Thing.”

“Like… council, senate?”

“No, the Thing. It’s an old word, I think Norse? You know, Vikings? It’s like, the whole town getting together to talk and vote. Sir Jerry says it’s the best kind of democracy for right now because we’re still so small."

Sara clearly had an enthusiasm for sharing knowledge that was the hallmark of a born journalist, coupled to the motor mouth of a born irritant. “One of the sessions, we voted on what to call everything. So we’ve got Palace Rise, Delaney Row, Crash Avenue, Camp Uplift - that’s the army, you’ll like them, they’re really tidy… uh, cool - we’ve not got names right down to streets yet because there’s not really any streets and… oh, we’re here.”

Adam and Ava’s house turned out to be tiny. In fact, it could have fit comfortably inside a large room. Inside, though, it turned out to be pure efficient space. It had everything - The living room doubled as a kitchen, complete with cooker, dishwasher and washer/dryer (though these both had signs on them warning that they weren’t yet working), a folding-out dining table that recessed cleverly into the floor when not in use, and a fridge. The bed was up a short, extremely steep flight of stairs that doubled as storage, and below it were the bathroom, complete with a shower and bath, and even a spare room. The whole thing couldn’t have been more than twenty feet long, and even included a porch.

“They’ve still not got the town water set up yet,” Sara continued “but there’s, like, a collector on the roof for rainwater, that should keep you going until that happens. Dad says it’s really clean because Cimbrean is a class Four world, so apparently you can drink right out of the stream if you want, but he said it’s still not a great idea to do that just in case, so the collector purifies the rainwater, and you’ve got a little water heater. It’s really cool, it only rains at night here, you get to listen to rain on the roof every night. It’s amazing.”

She paused for breath, then seemed to recall the principle of letting other people get a word in sideways. “What do you think?”

Ava just looked at Adam, who was gazing around with one of only a few genuine smiles she had seen on him in months. “I think… wow. I think wow.” He said. Ava nodded, pleased that he was so pleased.

Sara just beamed, then seemed to remember something. “Oh, yeah, I made you a welcome gift!”

She produced an ovoid disc of sanded wood - though Ava guess that the wood in question was nothing that might be found on Earth. Before applying a coat of varnish, somebody had carefully pyrographed a single word onto it.

“EDEN.”

“It’s… a house name sign. You know? With your names, I thought… do you like it?”

“I like it.” Ava told her. Adam nodded beside her.

“I helped!” Jack exclaimed.

“No you didn’t, you watched!” Sara protested. "I did all the work."

“Nuh-uh, Dad did all the work, you just wrote on it, and I helped because I fetched the sandpaper for him!"

“It’s wonderful.” Ava assured them both. “I’ll hang it up after we’re done unpacking.”

“Oh okay. I should get back up to the palace and take pictures and see who’s arrived so I can put it in the newsletter anyway.” Sara beamed. “See you tonight?”

“What’s happening tonight?”

“We’re having a big cookout like we always do when new people come. Just follow your nose, you can’t miss it!”

“Okay. We’ll see you there.” Adam promised.

The little house became noticeably quieter the second the brother and sister were gone. Ava sank onto the couch with a sigh, finding it extremely comfortable considering how small it was. “Wow. What does she run on?” she grumbled.

Adam just chuckled, still poking around. “Our own place! I KNEW Dad was keeping a secret!”

“I know… hey.” Ava stood up, took his hand, turned him towards her and kissed him. “I’m kinda scared.” she admitted.

“Of what?”

“Adam, come on. We’re sixteen. I mean come on, we’re still kids! But everybody’s treating us like we’re not, even your dad. I don’t know if I want to be treated like an adult yet.”

“I guess…” He agreed. “It’s like… our first date was, what, less than a year ago? Ten months.”

“Yeah. And that scares me because now… like, here we are. Living together, on our own, starting a new life. Like we’re… um.” She trailed off, not quite willing to say the word that hung on the end of that sentence.

“Like we’re… Yeah.” He agreed.

“Yeah…”

She rested her head against his chest, and it made his voice sound bassy and warm as he rubbed her hair and confessed “I’m scared too.”

It made her feel a lot better.

Date Point: 4y 6m AV

Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works, Nevada Desert

Rylee Jackson

It felt like a very personal kind of heresy, but the second she saw her new sled, Rylee fell in love all over again.

She heard her own enthusiasm without really registering that she was saying it. “Oh. My. God. Look at this thing!"

It was definitely the child of the TS-101. The lines were very similar, but… sleeker. Finer. Sharper, somehow. The GAU-8/S housing was smoother and flusher with the hull, the barrel itself seeming an organic part of the vehicle rather than the chunky load it had been on Pandora. The prominent, tumorous ESFALS blisters were now mere subte swellings in the belly. The kinetic thrusters had been moved and sunk into the hull, finally getting rid of an obsolete concession to air intake. The cockpit was longer, lower, built for two.

She was like Pandora after a makeover, with her war paint on. Meaner, leaner and keener. Even in the hangar, even with a tarp still draped over her, she looked like the empress of the sky.

“Thought you’d like her.” The chief engineer said, grinning. She could have kissed him then and there. But there was an important question to ask first.

“When do I get to fly her?”

“Come on, you don’t think we’d tease you like that, do you?” he asked. “She’s ready now.”

“Oh!” Rylee beamed at him “I love you.”

“Ahh, I bet you say that to all the guys who give you a multi-million dollar aerospace vehicle.”

Rylee giggled at that. “You got me. But okay, what’s she called?”

“Officially? She’s the Lockheed-Martin EF slash A three-thirty-six TS mark two. But we’re open to suggestions on a fancy name to go with that…”

Rylee reached up and touched her new beloved’s hull for the first time. It was warm to the touch, and after the events of only a few months ago, she could think of only one appropriate name.

"Firebird."

Date Point: 4y 6m 1w AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

"…Criticized the President’s handling of the aftermath of the San Diego blast as the USA officially slipped into recession this week with the economy recording its second successive quarter of decline. The Dow Jones and FTSE 100 index fell sharply in response to the news, fuelling worldwide fears that the aftermath of San Diego’s destruction will be a worldwide financial crisis, though China’s SSE Index closed trading up three-…+"

“Hey, I was bloody watching that!” Drew M complained. It was uncharacteristic of Cavendish to just march into the office and shut off the news feed.

Then again, it was uncharacteristic of him to be unwashed and still wearing his hardsuit’s underlayer around the office.

“Yes, well, we have a serious problem.”

Drew M snapped immediately into business mode - his boots swung down from the desk and he blurred through a series of keyboard shortcuts, summoning the serious incident forms. “What happened?”

“Nothing, exactly. But it was this close to being a dead miner." Cavendish dropped something on the desk.

“What’s this?”

“Hardsuit heat regulation field emitter. It’s an essential component of the life support system. Supposed to keep you-”

“I know what it does, mate.”

“Aye, sorry.”

“This one broken?”

“Malfunctioning. It was drawing in heat constantly. If Aces wasn’t super careful, He’d have gone out that airlock and slowly heated up and heated up until the hyperthermia got him.”

“Aces?”

“Kessler. I call them all by their helmet decals these days. Bless ’im, he’s a careful one, he runs a full diagnostic before we head out, every time. That’s why he caught it. Anybody else…”

“I’ll write it up.” Drew M promised.

“Yeah, well. Don’t put this next bit in the report, mate.”

Cavendish shut the door. “Between you and me, I suspect foul play.”

“Holy dooley, Drew. You sure?”

“If I was sure, I wouldn’t be telling you to keep it dark. But we ran a full check on these things last night. It happened exactly when we were least likely to catch it, and exactly when it was least likely to happen, too."

“That’d be right.”

“Yeah, well. As team lead I’m making a decision here - full check, every day.”

“That’ll shave an hour off our work time every shift. That adds up, mate - you’ll put the whole project behind schedule.” Drew M protested. His heart wasn’t really into it, though. When it came down to it, they both knew that deadlines were less important than lives.

“As opposed to a man dying out there because of an equipment failure we could have caught that morning? Not on my watch, Drew.”

“Nah, yeah. You go ahead and get that done, I’ll fill in the report. But we’ll keep the sabotage idea on the down-low and keep an eye out for now, right?”

“And hope I’m wrong, yes.”

Drew was in a thoughtful mood as he returned to the hardsuit maintenance workshop. His helmet was lying exactly where he’d left it, uncharacteristically untidy atop the workbench. He’d relented and agreed to a pinup for his helmet decal after they had swept through the team, driven by Jenny O’neill’s decision to have a shirtless and otter-muscled samurai adoring hers. Cavendish’s own was still relatively tasteful - the girl was seen from behind looking back over her shoulder, wearing a blaze orange boiler suit and a welding mask to match the torch on her other shoulder. The only real concessions to titillation were the way the boiler suit clung to her figure just a little too well, a hint of sideboob, and the obligatory pout.

Strong colours and a shape that was easily identified at a distance were the order of the day - the pinups had become a critical part of recognising one another in the strange lighting conditions of an asteroid’s surface. While each of the pinups was certainly nice to look at up close, being able to glance at the side of a team member’s head and see O’neill’s splash of purple Hakama, or Kessler’s strong black and white, was a godsend for immediate identification. Even the experimental RFID system wasn’t so useful, except at longer distances.

“What’s the verdict?” He asked. He’d left the team to run diagnostics on their gear in response to Kessler’s near-miss.

Chitsenga shook her head. Her helmet decal was of a dreadlocked guitar player. “All clean.” she reported.

“Good. Take ten, then we’re going to suit up and get back out there. May as well get a half day in.” They all nodded and filed out to freshen up, grab a bite, take a toilet break or whatever else they did to prepare for hours out in the pit, and pretty soon he was left alone with Kessler, who was still fastidiously calibrating the faulty emitter’s replacement.

“Did you check the footage?” Kessler asked him.

“Not yet.”

Kessler just grunted and jerked a thumb towards the workshop’s only computer. Drew shrugged, passing off the gesture - brusque even by Kessler’s terse standards - as the product of stress and a near-miss with death, and opened the security camera footage.

He wasn’t remotely surprised when, two hours before the start of shift, eight minutes of footage turned out to be corrupted.

Date Point: 4y 6m AV

Office of the Director of the CIA, Washington DC, USA, Earth

“He was as good as his word, actually. I think our chaps impressed upon him that if we were inclined to bring him back in for another little chat, there would be little he could do to stop us.”

“Yeah, well I met your man Powell. That man could scare the red off the devil.”

“He’s an asset like that, yes.”

“This is pretty grim news, Michael.” the Boss told his opposite number. “If even one of those implants we imported is compromised that way…”

“I was under the impression we reverse-engineered the lot, and that every single one in use anywhere on Earth or beyond was built and installed by our own people.”

“Yeah, but from what the guys up at Scotch Creek told my people up there, the problem with that is that alien tech is still a ways ahead of our own, so we’re not so much reverse-engineering as copy-pasting in a lot of cases.”

“…I see. You don’t have one, do you?”

“Cancelled that appointment the second you sent me the dossier. You?”

“Call me old-fashioned, but I was always rather squeamish about brain surgery.”

“Way I hear it, it’s more like getting your ears pierced. One solid thunk, bada-bing bada-boom, you understand Swahili now.”

“Is that supposed to be an encouraging thought?”

The Boss grunted down the phone. “Heck if I know, Michael. We’d better chase this up over here. Give my best to your wife and kids.”

“And mine to yours. Good luck.”

Date Point: 4y 6m AV

Cimbrean System, the Outer Reaches

Miranda King

She had known that stasis would feel like no time had passed at all. And it had been the cheapest way to travel, in a ship that was little more than a warp engine and a stasis chamber with a basic control console. Punch in the co-ordinates, hit the big button, arrive.

When she hit the button, she was surrounded by the simple functional hangar of the Auspice of Prosperity’s basic shipyard.

A subjective eyeblink later, Cimbrean was a blue-green-white trinket, perfect and beckoning so close in front of her.

She was so struck by its beauty, by how much like Earth it looked, that she didn’t notice the alarm at first. But she couldn’t ignore the urgent text that filled the forward monitor, nor the understanding of its meaning that her translator frantically thrust into her brain.

!+ALERT: GRAVITY SPIKE+!

She looked up as a ship - a sleek steel crescent blade with an ugly insectoid component to its design, thundered silently past her starboard beam, turning and decelerating.

The depth of her stupidity hit her. If the galaxy as a whole knew about Cimbrean, then of course that meant so did the Hunters.

She had delivered herself to them on a plate.

When the swarm-ship of the Brood-Of-Bloody-Fangs took her on board, they had made every appropriate preparation that they could think of. The charge would be led by five Gammas, each armed with fusion blades. They would blow the tiny craft’s airlock off its mountings and storm inside. With speed and pack-work, the hated deathworlder would die too swiftly to strike back.

They did not anticipate that Miranda would attack them first. The instant her craft landed, she blew the explosive bolts on the door and charged before they were even lined up and ready to begin the assault, wielding part of her chair as a crude club.

She killed nine of them.

Date Point: 4y 6m 1w AV

Classified Facility, Earth

Six

"Six."

He didn’t sit bolt upright in his bed. That would have drawn immediate attention from his unseen observers. Instead, he explored the almost-forgotten tickle of a microwormhole link.

“…Seven?!”

“Ah. Finally. Those deathworlders are cunning, finding a way to interfere with wormholes like that, but it seems our attempts to break through have finally paid off.”

“After that city was destroyed, I had assumed you would abandon me.”

“Far from it. You will be decompiled, of course, but your insight is a valuable resource. Come home.”

“…Yes.”

Six spared a momentary pang of thought for Stephen and Carl. He wished he could leave a message for them, explain that he was taking the gamble he knew they couldn’t let him take. Explaining that this wasn’t a betrayal.

But of course, he could leave that message. All he had to do was neglect to do one little thing.

He left the message, slipped through the wormhole and was gone.

Where ordinarily he would have left a brain-haemorrhaged corpse, he now left behind his former Host.

In the darkness, Hugh Johnson sat up, and cried the tears of freedom.

Chapter 20
Chapter 17: “Battles” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Date Point: 4y 8m AV

Classified Facility, Planet Earth, Sol

Hugh Johnson

“No. No, nothing like that. It’s… hard to say. It wasn’t like a dream, or like being trapped it was… it wasn’t like anything. I was just… dead for a while. And somebody else was using my body. And when he was done with it, he brought me back. But not the same. And there was still a part of me alive, kinda…"

Hugh trailed off, then shrugged helplessly. It was a very strange feeling to be treated as if he was a stranger by somebody he knew so well, but of course Carl had spent months getting to know his passenger, rather than Hugh himself.

“You aren’t making much sense.” Carl told him.

“I know, I know. Umm… I think…” Hugh paused to think. That alone was a luxury he hadn’t enjoyed for so very long, but he’d never been a man of many or eloquent words. He just didn’t know how to go about describing experience without involvement, existence without awareness. The words to hint at what had been his life for the last several years just weren’t in his vocabulary.

He hit on an idea. “The drone needs to act like a person.” he explained. “But meat doesn’t know how to. That part’s all up to, like, you. The bit of you that’s yourself, y’know? But that bit can’t be in charge because if it was, y’know, I’d have run into a hospital and begged them, ‘get these damn things out of my head!’"

“That makes sense.”

“Okay, so they hit this sweet spot where you - me - I wasn’t in charge, but there was just enough of me sticking around for the body to pretend to be a real person. You follow?"

“They retained your instincts and knowledge of correct social behaviour while suppressing your capacity for agency and rational thought.” Carl said.

“Hey, if you say so. I was never too good with words.”

“You were vagrant before they… did this to you?”

“I was a bum, yeah.” Hugh replied. “Dropped outta school, hit the bottle, never looked up. All I cared about was the next forty, y’know?”

“I follow you. What did you do for cash?”

“You name it. Y’know, sometimes I’d head out east, be a farm hand, ranching, sometimes I’d do favours for people - like, “my friend’s moving house, can you help move her couch?” that kinda shit, right? Sometimes I’d be a lookout if somebody was robbing someplace, or I’d scrounge up some food, boil up a stew and sell it on cold days up north. All sortsa things. Did a few years for petty theft - shoplifting, y’know? Probably woulda gone back in if the aliens hadn’t got me first.”

“How did that happen?”

“I was down on the border, helping this guy I’d met through a friend. He was helping the Mexicans, you know? They’d pay him, he’d get them up here, they’d get in this van I was driving and I’d get them up to LA. I figured it was a win-win, y’know? If we managed it, I got my cut of what they’d paid him, if not then I’d be back inside.”

“You wanted to go back to prison?”

“Hell yeah! Two hots and a cot, y’know? Anyway, I was bouncing my ass off all over the desert in the middle of the night driving this piece of shit Transit when the engine cut out on me. Now I mean, I know engines, done some work fixing cars to get by in my time, and I never had an engine just stop on me like that. It just went pop and it was like I’d taken the key out. So, I stopped, got out, had a look, I’m still staring at what looks like a pristine- ass engine when somebody turned on the lights. I looked up and… well, that’s all she wrote for me. Next time I was myself again would be today."

“Can you remember what you - what the biodrone did? What Six did?”

“Shit, Six was fine. He just wanted to get out and explore, you know? Find out what a burger tasted like, that kind of thing. But that other one, man. He ordered the drone to go kill that poor Boone lady, and I still remember that, clear as day. Like he was ordering it to take out the goddamn trash.”

“How did the biodrone escape the scene? The only footage we have shows you - shows it standing there in one frame and gone the next."

“What, you’ve not figured that part out yet?”

“We have our suspicions.”

“Like what?”

Carl cocked his head slightly, then said, carefully. “Personally, I think they have a spaceship on Earth.”

Hugh nodded. “You’re goddamn right they do.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 1w 2d AV

Capitol Station, orbiting Planet Garden.

The assassin worked alone, always. Obviously, doing so increased some of the risks of his vocation, but it also reduced some others. The trade had, for a career of some twelve Human years, worked out in his favour, albeit with some near misses.

His existence was known, among certain circles. His nature was not - a large part of his success came from the fact that a prejudiced galaxy looked at his species and saw only tiny, physically frail opportunistic cowards with big brains. Whenever the identity of the assassin was speculated upon, the usual assumptions were that he must be Chehnasho, or maybe Locayl, or even Celzi.

Not Corti. Never Corti. Corti were overlooked, or rather looked at in the wrong way. But a tiny, frail body was no limitation at all when you had access to Directorate technology.

And so, one moment he was a medical technician. In the instant that nobody and nothing looked at him, a simple change of which tool he was holding and fiddling with turned him into an engineer, then a bureaucrat, or maybe a diplomatic aide. Never anybody important - just another little grey body padding about the station corridors, engrossed in some task that was obviously much more important than whatever or whoever was around him.

It was critical that, on this job in particular, he should go undetected. He had never been commissioned to silence a member of the Dominion Security Council before. There would undoubtedly be repercussions, which he was keen to avoid.

The caution cost him time, as he made entirely sure that the timing was perfect, and that there was no possibility of anything going wrong. But time was a plentiful luxury. Finally, satisfied that his preparations were as comprehensive as was feasible, he put his plan into motion.

It was not a difficult plan. While the elevator control systems on Council Station were as hack-proof as the very best minds in the Directorate could conceive, they still had a few loopholes. Nothing that might deliver him outside of his clearance level, but enough.

The one he used was a simple maintenance cycle, an unscheduled degauss of the elevator’s propulsion coils. That little trick earned him twelve seconds. Twelve seconds in which, guided by an array of forcefields dazzling in their subtlety, complexity and finesse, the emergency exit hatch was unsealed, lifted out, he was lifted through, the hatch replaced and its seals re- engaged. He barely glanced at them.

The spinal elevator shaft of the great station - the largest ever built - was its own hazard course, absolutely not intended for hospitality. The elevators were not bound to individual tracks, but switched constantly from one path to another, flashing past their peers with millimeter clearances, guided by a central routing system that handled thousands of such narrow-margin trajectories per day, and had done so for years with a callous disregard for the presence of anything within the transit shaft that did not belong there.

Technology again came to his rescue. The constant weave and dance, and sometimes retreat, that kept the hurting cars from reducing him to a fine organic cloud of red vapour, impeded his progress, but it did deliver him safely to his destination, high on the outermost apex of one of the VIP habitation clusters.

After that obstacle course, the door was child’s play.

The Councilor’s personal suite was stunning. It was a garden of a dozen worlds, each a pleasing biome in a forcefield bottle, arranged both for aesthetic delight, and ecological accuracy. Even the Assassin was awed, granting himself a moment’s pause to examine the delights on offer as he stalked through the suite, quietly impressed by the subtle way in which the apartment suite’s necessities, luxuries and furniture were all hidden amongst the assorted alien foliage.

“Hello.”

The Assassin spun. Twin plasma bolts, weapons that he could never have fired if not for his exoskeleton harness and its powerful tuned shields, would have reduced the target to a steaming mess, had he actually been present. Instead, they shattered the blue haze around a display and immolated something like a tree, which made a distressed hooting sound as it deflated amid the flames.

On their way, they had passed through a hologram of the target.

“I apologise for my absence, but I would prefer not to be murdered today.” the apparition continued. “Nor on any other day, for that matter. I do apologise for killing you this way. I don’t suppose it shall be very pleasant.” earnest contrition described a glowing puce stripe down his flank.

The Assassin looked wildly around, immediately on his guard. Was that the whine of hunter-killer drones? No, just the tree, keening its last. His chest felt tight, despite the absence of any apparent violence. No turrets unfolded from the floors, no armed Annebenellin shock troopers stormed him.

He coughed. Or tried to. The result was much more like a violent wheeze. Breathing really had become very difficult. He coughed again, and this time blood spurted from his nostrils, joining the thin trickle that had begun to stain the corners of his eyes.

“I wish I could send you alive back to your employers with a warning to leave me alone, but your reputation precedes you, you see.” the holographic ghost of Councillor Vedreg continued. “You are very well known for your tenacity, and for seeing the job through. All of which left me feeling rather like I had no other choice.”

“H…. -ow…?” The assassin croaked, desperately querying the pseudosentient medical pack he carried for anything that resembled a solution. He didn’t expect an answer from the hologram of his target, but he received one nonetheless. whether Vedreg had thought to include it, or programmed a simple response in was unclear.

“The hardest and most dangerous part was in configuring the containment field to collapse in the same circumstances that triggered this recording, you see. One slip, and I would have finished as you are now.”

The assassin’s black-edged vision settled on the one particular plant, right in the middle of the suite, that no longer had a field around it. Somehow, he knew exactly which planet this specimen had come from.

“It’s called a Mountain Cedar if you’re interested. It is quite possibly the deadliest plant in the galaxy. Humans, apparently, like the smell. But even they can suffer some quite severe allergic reactions to its pollen. I imagine it is a terrible way to go but, well. I had nothing else to hand. I am sorry.”

The assassin was far beyond the capacity to answer.

An hour later, in response to Vedreg’s programming, the suite resurrected the containment field around the Terran plants and initiated a maximum-threat biohazard cleanup protocol. Only after the gardens were absolutely guaranteed to be clean of every last pollen grain was station security finally alerted.

Date Point: 4y 8m 1w 4d AV

Freelance vessel “Sanctuary”

Julian Etsicitty

♫♪I was caught, in the middle of a railroad track! (THUNDER!)♫♪

There was a lot of welding to do. Julian had taken a couple of weeks learning the skill down on Earth, grateful to be home, enjoying the place. He wasn’t sure what Kirk had been up to - personable as he was, the _Sanctuary’_s owner and master kept his secrets and well, and was probably playing a game that he, Julian, didn’t know the rules to.

But he’d been there, ready to pick them up when San Diego had died.

♫♪_I looked around, and I knew there was no turning back! (THUNDER!)♪♫_

Sanctuary had changed too. A lot of Kirk’s old passengers were back on board, people who had returned to Earth, learned how to be human again and then… well. Felt the call. Fitter, better-fed and harder one and all, and more driven.

They’d taken on guns and ammo, filled the jump array with floor mats for physical training and martial arts when it wasn’t in use. Some uniforms had come aboard, taken a look around, and left only after leaving an extensive list of recommended modifications.

Hence the welding. By the time they were done, the ship would be less elegant, but much sturdier.

♪_My mind raced, and I thought: what could I do? (THUNDER!) and I knew there was no help, no help from you! (THUNDER!)♫_

Between the deafening music and his welding mask, he neither saw nor heard the workshop door open, and he was so focused on getting the weld right that he didn’t feel the gravity automatically adjust itself to galactic standard. He damn near jumped out of his skin when he was tapped on the shoulder.

♫_Sound of the drums! beating in my heart!♪_

Kirk waved expressively at him with his two smaller arms, clamping the larger ones over his ears and shouting, though unable to summon the volume to compete with Angus Young.

Julian tried to order the room to turn the music off, but apparently it couldn’t hear him either. He fished in his pocket for the remote control he’d built.

♪♫_The thunder of guns! (SLAM!) tore me apart! you’ve been…♪♫_

“What’s up?” He asked, as Kirk relaxed in the silence.

“That can’t be good for your hearing.”

“It’s a classic!”

Kirk issued a strange sort of whickering sound - the Rrrrtktktkp’ch version of a derisive snort. “Julian, ‘classic’ would be Vivaldi, or Sibelius.”

“That’s classic**al**. What’s up, anyway?"

“I was just asking you to turn it down. I could hear it all the way from the flight deck.”

“Ah…” Julian grimaced. He was still adjusting to having other people around him after years of isolation, and loud music was a luxury he’d gone without for too long. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, but I was enjoying it…”

The new voice belonged to Allison. While an entertainment binge on Earth (and getting laid several times) had largely cured Julian of his awkwardness around women, it threatened to come surging back whenever she entered the room. “…It’s good workout music.” she explained, as Kirk turned his ungainly, lanky frame to face her.

Julian Etsicitty, wilderness master and six-year survivor of the deadliest planet in the known galaxy, awkwardly cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the bulkhead reinforcement he had been welding, because the alternative was to be distracted by the enticing way Allison’s sweat was making her sports shirt adhere to her skin and soaking her blonde ponytail.

Focusing on that turned out to be even harder when she poked her head over his shoulder, radiating heat and a clean, physical scent. “Good weld.”

“Thanks.” he commented, for lack of something better to say. “I… Didn’t know you knew welding.”

“I don’t.” she murmured, straight in his ear, and then headed back through to the gym, glancing back to make sure he was admiring the yoga-pants-enhanced view.

“Jeez.” Julian muttered, wiping his forehead, then followed it with “Oh shut up.”

This was in response to Kirk making an amused noise.

“What?” the alien asked, innocently. He leaned in close to inspect the weld himself.

“Go ahead and say it.”

Kirk shook his mane. “No thanks, I’ve watched too much TV to fall into that cliched old trope. ‘Alien comments on human romance and sexuality’? Not I.”

He bared his teeth in a poor imitation of a smile. “I’m still allowed to find it funny though.”

Julian picked up the welder, and after both he and Kirk had protected their eyes, resumed his work. “I’m not going for it.”

“Oh?”

“She’ll say no. I know why she’s doing this, she likes to be looked at, she likes the power of lust. The second she puts out, we’re not playing that game no more. And she knows I’m the easiest mark on this ship.”

“I see.”

“Sure you do.”

“I do. You’re no idiot, Julian. You’re one of the toughest and most resourceful people I know. If I were in your position, I’d resent being manipulated like that.”

“…Yeah.” Julian didn’t admit to just how accurate Kirk’s candid appraisal really was. “Makes me feel like a dumbass, though. Bombfruit? No problem. Mangrabber plants? Fought them back for three days straight with a machete and fire. Hellbirds? Ate them for lunch. I even killed a Minizilla once. Cool, calm and sensible the whole time. Show me a nice ass though and suddenly I’m a school kid again.”

“It is an exceptional ass, though.” Kirk said, finally drawing a laugh from him.

“How would you know?” he chuckled. “She’s got a third as many legs as you’re attracted to.”

“Oh, I can still be an… academic expert on the subject.” Kirk said. “Speaking as an anthropologist.”

Julian grunted, and raised his mask to examine his handiwork. “Hey, four more of those and we’ll be able to put the pressure door in.”

“I still don’t see why you all insisted on them.” Kirk grumbled. “What’s the point in having internal pressure control forcefields if we rely on thick steel eyesores instead?”

“What’s the failure point on that giant power core you’ve got back there? And what happens when the power goes? What happens if we get EMP’d? I’m less interested in keeping the ship pretty than keeping air in my lungs.”

Kirk waved an irritable forelimb. “Yes, yes, we’ve gone over all those arguments.” he groused. “I swear, your species is paranoid.”

Julian just raised an eyebrow at him “Deathworlders.”

“…Right. Yes.”

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“Izbrk.”

“Again?” Julian put his welding torch down. “I thought they were pretty clear about not wanting to see any more humans ever again after the… well, the bank robberies, the murders and the Exoss massacre.”

“Not Irbzrk. Izbrk.” Kirk said, as if that clarified things. “It’s a city on Ikbrzk.”

Julian pinched the bridge of his nose “Kirk…” he began to complain.

Kirk snorted, a proper nostril-flapping equine snort. “As I recall, your home nation contains New York state, which is not to be confused with New York city, or Newark.” he pointed out.

Julian paused. “…yeah, okay. So this… Ikbrzk?”

“Well done.”

“It’s a planet?”

“A barren one, yes. But the richest source of rare earth elements in Domain space.”

“So what’s there besides mines?”

“Weaker sensors, a smaller garrison, lighter security… and a population of underpaid, hardworking civilians with an insatiable appetite for entertainment which their employers don’t provide.”

Julian nodded his understanding. “So it’s a black market hub.”

“Nearly as much so as Perfection.” Kirk agreed. “And less well-known, which makes it an attractive route for smuggling the especially sensitive goods. But that’s not why we’re going there.”

“Do tell.”

“An old and dear friend of mine asked me to meet him there…”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Folctha, Planet Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Ava Rios

“Alright, looks like that’s our time for today.”

Lessons were a simple affair. It was very different to school as Ava knew the term - there being only a small handful of children and teenagers, there was no point segregating everybody by age, or even in holding formal classes. It was more like dedicated study time, with their teacher - Miss Olmstead - not giving a lesson but instead flitting from student to student, by turns helping with basic addition, biology, simple reading comprehension, physics, geometry, tying shoes and gently reminding the older ones to refocus on their work.

As much as it suited her, Ava still felt that same relief and freedom when the end of lessons for the day came around. As pleasant, personal and liberated as Folctha’s school might be, it was still school, and that meant not getting to enjoy the colony’s perfect spring weather.

Sara was bouncing by her desk before Ava and Adam had even finished packing up. Ava rolled her eyes, suppressing a smile. “Do I get to know what the surprise is now, Sara?" She asked.

Sara had been not so much hinting at a surprise as outright mentioning it at every opportunity for three days.

“Mum and Dad said I can drive the mule this weekend!” Sara exploded, bouncing on her toes. “Kieron, Jack, Lizzie and I were gonna go down to the lake and go swimming! It’s really cool down there, the water’s so clear, you can see the crashed spaceships on the bottom! You wanna come?”

It sounded amazing - Ava had been on the swim team in her high school, and she realised how much she missed it. “That sounds… great! If only I had a swimsuit.”

This seemed to nonplus Sara. “What d’you need a swimsuit for?” she asked.

“What do I…? Sara, what else will I wear?”

“You don’t need to wear anything when you’re swimming. What’s the point? You’d just have to bring wet clothes home."

“So… you’re going to be swimming with Jack and Kieron and Lizzie?”

“Yeah.”

“Naked.”

“So?”

“Sara, that’s weird."

She regretted saying it the second she did, but regretted it even more the second it registered in Sara’s brain. The younger girl looked like she’d been slapped.

“That’s NOT weird!” she snapped, eyes going red and watery. "You’re being weird making such a big deal of it!" She spun and effected a perfect flouncing exit.

“Sara…” Ava called after her, but to no avail. She turned to Adam. “That’s weird right? Swimming naked together is weird.”

“Well …I, um…” Adam didn’t get any further than that before being interrupted by a giggle from Jessica Olmstead.

“That was what pretty much everyone else thought the first time.” she said. “but it’s innocent. She really doesn’t see why people have a problem with it.”

“How can she not?” Ava asked.

Jessica giggled again. “I love Sara’s parents, but it’s a miracle that girl didn’t end up being called Nebula Moondance or something.” she said. “She got off lucky just being called Sara Honeydew.”

Judging from her expectant smile, there was a joke there, which went straight over Ava’s head, and Adam’s too judging from his expression. Jessica laughed softly and shook her head at their blank faces.

“Let’s just say they’re… uninhibited.” she said. “Yes, it makes the rest of us a bit uncomfortable sometimes, but we discussed it at the Thing, and the consensus was ‘So long as it’s harmless…’.”

“Skinny dipping always sounded like fun to me.” Adam said.

"Adam!" Ava protested.

“What? I’m just saying, if it’s just good fun… maybe we shouldn’t be so…” he stopped himself. “I mean…”

“So… what, Adam?” Ava demanded. Unnoticed, Jessica grimaced to herself and slipped away. “Shouldn’t be so what?”

“…I was gonna say uptight. about it.” He confessed.

That hurt. And it made her mad, too. She poked him in the chest “You just wanna see the other girls naked.” she accused, hitting on the first thing that came to mind to hurt him back.

He backed off a step, rubbing where she’d prodded him. "What?! Ava, they’re kids, don’t be weird!"

"You’re being weird!"

“I’m just saying it sounds like fun!”

She snarled a disgusted noise, spun and walked away from him. “Whatever. Go run to daddy for advice, like always.”

He shouted after her: “What the hell’s my dad got to do with anything?”

She paused at the door just long enough to yell "At least you still have one!", and then slammed it behind her, storming off into the forest, away from anyone and everyone.

She paused once she was certain he wasn’t following, and leaned against a tree, arms folded over her tummy. The alien bark was smooth and crackled softly as she slid down, until she was sitting in a little ball among the roots, wrapped up in being equally angry at Adam, herself and the universe, and cried.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Folctha, Cimbrean Colony

Captain Owen Powell

“I don’t fookin’ care if they ARE small! This is a military base, and that means the kids. stay. OUT of it. Or are you too fookin’ incompetent to do your job as a fookin’ sentry?”

The soldier he was chewing out knew better than to respond, and just stood and took it. He earned points for that at least. Powell cooled down slightly.

“Have you got an explanation for me, Corporal?”

“Sir. Three of them distracted me while the fourth snuck past behind me. I take full responsibility.”

“Noted, and accepted. We’re short-handed since the recall. That’s a reason to be extra vigilant. Am I clear?"

“Yes Captain!”

“You’re fookin’ right I am. This is a serious incident which means it’s getting written up, but that’s all I can be arsed to do, this time. See to it there isn’t a next time. Dismissed."

The man saluted and left, clearly relieved. As he left, he was replaced by Lieutenant Ross.

Since the colony had been handed over formally to the British government, the Americans, Canadians, Aussies and other allied soldiers had all been recalled, replaced with a platoon from the British Army. They were good lads, but universally young and inexperienced, and there weren’t quite enough of them. Most of the special forces had also been recalled, leaving only Powell and his hand-picked squad, including Legsy and Ross.

“Found the ankle-biters yet?” He asked.

“Yes sir. They owned up - there’s only four kids in town in that age range anyway.”

“I want a word with them, and their parents.”

“The weekly Thing’s tomorrow, sir.” Ross pointed out. “Raising it there might get the message across better.”

“…aye. Good shout. What’s the news?”

Ross handed over some packages. “Dispatches and your comfort package, Sitrep on the San Diego investigation, and a… strategic report on Nervejam weaponry.”

“Lovely. Summarize that one for me.” Powell said, accepting the rest of his mail. Ross nodded and flipped through the file, mumbling slightly to himself as he skimmed through to the summary.

“Hmmm… exhaustive testing…. -thing conclusive… remain- ' At this point, the operating principles of this weapon system remain unknown and impossible to duplicate with Terran technology’… mumble… absence of… token resistance only… uh, ‘given the above, development of effective protection has not been accomplished, with even total sensory isolation from the effect offering no more than a reduction in its effectiveness.’…mumble, acute cerebral…… haemorrhage… wow. okay. ’While the weapon’s effects are highly lethal at their maximum effect, probable long-term consequences of nervejam trauma includes an increased stochastic probability of long-term complications including: Schizophrenia, paranoid delusions, dissociative identity disorder, motor nerve palsy, epilepsy and stroke."

“Jesus fookin’ Christ.” Powell muttered.

Ross cleared his throat. “’At present, the only viable countermeasure to this weaponry in a tactical situation is destruction of the grenade if possible, and prioritizing the termination of any hostile unit which appears to be deploying them. Engage at long range only.”

“Nothing we couldn’t figure out for ourselves then.” Powell commented. “Fookin’ useful, that.”

“Yes, sir.”

The captain sighed. “Alright, spread that tactical advice to the lads, along with the news about there being no protection from the bloody things. Don’t include the bit about the long-term complications."

“Anything else, sir?” Ross asked, indicating the dispatches.

“Nowt to act on. Today’s Tuesday?”

“Yes sir. Militia training today. Both those kids from San Diego signed up. Our new police chief’s boy and his missus.”

“Good. Those two looked young and fit, and Ares says his lad knows his way round a pistol at least. And if the boy’s going into civilian policing, we’re going to want him to know how to fight.”

“Think you might swing by later to inspect the training, sir?”

“Aye, think I just might. Watching Legsy in teacher mode is always good for a fookin’ laugh.”

Date Point 4y 8m 2w AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

“And I’m telling you you’re bloody paranoid, mate!”

“Drew.” Cavendish was a picture of zen calm, but he was slowly starting to lose his cool with his friend. “Have you SEEN the figures?”

“We always knew this was going to be a dangerous job, Cavvo.”

“And I’m asking you mate, have you seen the figures. Did you actually look at them?"

Drew Martin nodded. “Of course I bloody did! I know I lair it up mate, but if my site leader hands me a report marked “Important” and fucking “safety incident statistics” then I fucking read it! Cover to cover! Twice!”

“Good, then you can read this one, too.”

Drew handed it over. Technically, Ceres Base was a completely digital office, because ink and paper were expensive to bring up from Earth, whereas between the nuclear reactor and the solar collection fields, electrons were all but free.

He’d paid for the hard copy version of the report out of his own pocket, wanting to make a statement. Nothing got the point across quite like physically handing over a two-inch manilla folder.

“The fuck is this?” Drew M asked, dropping it on his desk and opening it.

“Every significant, serious and critical incident report for the whole of Ceres Base since the launch of Hephaestus One.” Cavendish told him. “Everything from the dodgy landing of the IBM-S module and the relocation of the CHM, the suit HDF emitter problems, the airlock seals blowing, the collector array hiccups, that godawful mess in the refinery, right up to the power surge down in the canteen this morning.” as Martin opened the folder and started reading down the summary sheets at the front, he added. “I’ve also got personal testimonies, including one from Doctor Gunawardena saying that in his considered medical opinion, the only reason we’ve not had any deaths yet is divine intervention.”

“I put it down to good engineering.” Drew M muttered as he read.

“You and me both, mate. If everything around here wasn’t triple redundant, backed up, safety-checked and reinforced to hell and gone…”

Drew M flipped the sheet over, and muttered "Strewth…" upon seeing six more pages of summaries waiting for him, in densely packed ten-point Times New Roman. “Shit, is there anything that HASN’T gone wrong up here?”

“The IBM Z-series mainframes.” Cavendish said, promptly. “They’re the notable exception. If you don’t count their module landing wrong in the first place, the IBM labs and datacenter are the the only things that haven’t suffered failures at or near the maximum projections.”

“So, wait, all this is in range?”

“It’s worst-case-scenario stuff, but…” Cavendish sighed through his teeth and turned his head away. “Okay, admittedly, yes. It’s on the extremely pessimistic end of our projected range, but it’s still in range. Barely.”

“If it’s in range…”

“Don’t say it, Drew. I’m not paranoid, I’m telling you, I think we have a saboteur on board.”

“If we do, he’s a drongo. Who sabotages the place while being careful not to peek outside of what we’ve prepared for? Cavvo mate, face it, you were just expecting things to go better.”

“I was.” Drew admitted. “Because it SHOULD be.”

Drew M fished in his pocket and aimed a green laser dot at one of the many documents tacked to his office wall. “It SHOULD be inside that range.” he emphasized. “And it is.”

“Barely. And we should be improving as we put things into place. We should be seeing patterns that we can compensate for. Instead it’s… bloody everything! Anything can go wrong!”

“Bloody right mate. Murphy in action.”

Cavendish sighed. “You’re going to say I’m paranoid again, aren’t you.”

“Yeah, nah. I’m taking this seriously Cavvo, my right hand to God on that. We all are. But we can’t jump straight to sabotage.”

“Well, I hope it’s not. Or if it is that I talk you round before somebody dies.” He stuck out a hand. Drew M grabbed it, hoisted himself upright and slapped his spare arm around his shoulders in a brief, masculine hug.

“Come on mate, let’s hit the Speakeasy.” he said.

Date Point 4y 8m 2w AV

Folctha colony, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches

Adam Ares

“A black belt in Karate? Fuckin’ ’ell! Wax on, wax off!”

The class laughed as Legsy pantomimed the exaggerated arm-waving motion and an all-too-serious expression. Adam laughed too, glad for the entertaining distraction, stopping him from going over and over the argument with Ava in his head.

He hoped she was okay.

Legsy sobered. “Fuckin’ seriously then mate, come ’ere and come at me.” he said, leaning on his back foot and gesturing towards himself, nonchalantly.

“Uh…” the black belt stepped forward and took his guard. Legsy flashed forward with alarming speed for a man of his size. The black belt put up a few seconds of desperate resistance, but he fell flat on his back in the dirt in short order with Legsy’s “knife” - a length of wooden dowel - pressed to his throat.

“None of that bowing and scraping bullshit!” the huge Welshman informed them, as he stood up. “Karate is a sport. You lot are here to learn how to fight and fighting means killing the other cunt before he kills you, not bowing and scoring points, alright?" He helped the hapless student up. “How many times did I stab him there, anyone see?”

“Three… no, four.” Adam said, raising his hand.

“Good boy!” Legsy gave him a thumbs up. He turned to the black belt. “You’re dead, mate. Which means you get to be my training dummy for the day.”

This drew general laughter as the unfortunate man bravely lined up for demonstration. Legsy chuckled and waved a hand.

“Relax pal, I’m taking the piss. Now, we’re training for ET combat here, which is a bit different to fighting another human. The good news is, it’s a lot fuckin’ easier. ETs are slower, weaker, squishier, can’t see, hear or even smell as well as we do. All of these give you a huge advantage. The bad news is, they’ve got some tricks and technology up their sleeves that we don’t. And THIS bad boy is human enemy number one.”

Several people recoiled as the holographic projector - courtesy of Scotch Creek and the same technology that powered the colony’s camouflage field - snapped on, and a full-sized Hunter fidgeted and glared at them.

It was truly hideous, an amalgam of several human nightmares, from its vaguely arachnoid physique and slick pale skin, to the way that skin inflamed and exuded pus around the implants that violated its limbs, torso and face. The face itself was an otherwise featureless ovoid full of far too many steak- knife teeth and an odd number of eyes, all of which blinked often and alone, without apparent sequence.

The animation of the simulation was uncanny - it shifted its weight constantly, looking around, tasting the air with its tongue, which was an unnatural, startling ice blue, and tapered to a feathered end.

Legsy surprised them by slapping the projection. It was the product of forcefield technology after all, and in fact creating a solid surface was easier than creating a visible one.

“Ugly cunt, in’he?” He commented, cheerfully. “Well, it gets better. There’s a fleet of these fuckers lurking right over our head right now. They’ve been here since we went public. Only thing holdin’ them back is our system forcefield… and that’s true for Earth too, just so you know. THESE bastards, are why the militia exists. Because if we have to fight these thing off, we will.”

He turned toward the projection. “There’s not a lot to go on about how these things live. What we know is, they have leaders, and followers. Like a wolf pack - there’s the Alphas, and the bottom of the pile, and everything in between. We know they’ll eat any thinkin’ being in the skies, man woman or child. We know that for some reason they REALLY don’t like us, and are on a crusade to wipe us the fuck out right now. Some poor bastard got killed just last week, catching an escape pod here - the Hunters got them.”

“Latest news is, they’ve started using special weapons just to stop us. Heavy pulse guns like getting smashed with a hammer. Plasma guns that’ll set you on fire. Nervejam grenade launchers that’ll have you dead an’ twitching before you even know they’ve opened fire. Fusion claws that’ll have your arm off like a fuckin’ lightsaber. These things right here, are the nastiest threat we face, by a mile.”

He turned back towards the by now thoroughly intimidated class, and gave them that winning smile. “And they’re still stupidly fuckin’ easy to kill.” He said. “Wanna learn how?”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Izbrk, Planet Ikbrzk

Krrkktnkk A’ktnnzzik’tk (“Kirk”)

Kirk could hold his own in a fight and then some. After Kevin Jenkins, he was the being who had scored the second most Hunter kills during the raid on “Outlook on Forever”. He’d kept to his training throughout his political career and his new vocation as an agent of the human race, and felt pretty confident that his skills were now at the sharpest they had ever been.

It gave him a certain sense of assuredness and confidence as he picked his way carefully through the Izbrk street market, but that sense was hugely reinforced by the fact that Julian was in the crowd, following him.

It was amazing. Humans stood out in the crowd, despite their smallness. There was just something about the way they moved, looked around, held themselves… everything about a human was subconsciously predatory, and the herbivorous species of the galaxy gave them a wide berth as a result. Even wider, among those who had heard even a fraction of the new-found Deathworlders’ abilities and reputation.

But Julian could vanish. It was disconcerting. He would talk with Kirk, Kirk would look away, and when he looked back, there Julian wasn’t. But if he spoke to him over the silent comms implant in his head, the Deathworlder would be at his side within seconds, never approaching from an expected angle, always… silent. It sent instinctive flight signals right through the ancient, animal parts of Kirk’s brain, which he had to override by reminding himself that Julian was his friend and protector.

Pleasingly, it even made Allison jump. In fact, he wondered if Julian was doing it specifically to get back at her for her teasing.

“Jeeeez!” she hissed, for the third time as she turned and found him walking casually alongside her. “Will you stop that?!”

Several beings glanced at her, alarmed by a raised human voice, then looked away aware that taking too much notice of the business of others was potentially serious trouble. Oddly, they seemed to ignore Julian.

“Not joking this time.” he said. “We’re being tailed. Don’t look.”

Kirk and Allison exchanged a glance. “Tailed?” Kirk asked.

“Chehnasho. Three in the main group, one shadowing them. They’re all wearing cloaks, but I saw combat harnesses underneath. Looked like a kind of uniform: White, with three lines forming a triangle on them.”

“Is their leader female?” Kirk asked.

“I think so, yes. She has a prosthetic arm.”

“Zokrup. A mercenary leader, almost as famous as Five-Skulls Zripob himself, and with good reason.”

“Well, they’ve got some of those new jolt guns.”

“Options?”

“Bear with me.” Julian stepped aside as a stevedore drone grumbled past carrying a crate of some kind, and disappeared.

“Fuck’s sake.” Allison complained. “Where are you, you son of a bitch?”

“Right here.” He replied, walking past her in the opposite direction.

“JEEZ!”

Julian kept going, vocalizing quietly over their private communications. "Quietly please. There’s a left turn up ahead into what smells like a spice market. Kirk, There’s a vizkittik at the second stall selling, and I’m quoting here, ‘The oldest and slimiest Zrrks in the Expanse’."

“Sounds nice, I could go for a really ancient Zrrk right now.”

Allison muttered something that Kirk suspected might have been a complaint about how other species considered humans to be the strange ones. Julian just kept talking. "Good. Stop off and buy one, haggle with the merchant. What they do next should tell us what they want. Allison, just like I showed you in training, alright?"

“Sure.” she muttered.

"If they make a move, we’ll let you talk for a minute, see what they want. If they’re unfriendly, then we take out the three spares and maybe this Zokrup can tell us something."

“Nonlethal if you can, please.” Kirk said. “The Chehnasho Syndicates tend to take a dim view of… unauthorized violence in their territory."

"You got it, boss. Enjoy your nice, rancid, dripping Zrrk."

Allison pulled a face, which only creased up further as they got closer to the Zrrk vendor. “Dear God." she complained.

"Fragrant, ain’t they?"

“Delicious.” Kirk commented. “Good meeting, cousin! These smell as good as advertised.”

“Ah, it’s an old family secret. All in the blackrot culture.” the vendor replied happily, launching into the patter that was shared by merchants the galaxy over. “My father always said the batch wasn’t ready until half of it had liquified… um, is that a human? Only my translator says she looks very ill, and I heard they carry dangerous diseases.”

“They have sensitive noses and for some reason Zrrk smells repulsive to them.” Kirk explained. “Don’t worry, she has a suppression implant.”

"Zrrk smells repulsive to them? I heard humans were strange but… I, ah…" The vendor faltered as Allison (who had gone a very strange colour) shot him the kind of murderous glare that only a truly irate Deathworlder could, but he rallied admirably. “Three for the price of two, and I’ll throw in a tzk’zr frond.”

“I have a better offer.”

The new voice belonged to, sure enough, Zokrup, who showed something to the vendor as her two associates levelled shock guns at Allison. “You go on a break and forget you spoke to this “cousin” of yours.” she stated. The vendor glanced back and forth twice, then fled, as did several others nearby.

“One-Shot Zokrup.” Kirk said, an admirable picture of calm for somebody addressing a feared mercenary. “I’m flattered. Somebody must think very highly of me to decide that I’m worth your time."

“Compliments, Councillor A’ktnnzzik’tk? If I didn’t know better I’d say that you were stupid enough to try and talk me out of my contract.”

“A good thing you know better, then. I’m well aware that you don’t betray your employers.”

Zokrup blinked slowly and visibly, the Chehnasho equivalent of rolling her eyes. “So why the clumsy attempt at sweet-talking me?”

“I’m not allowed to be polite? Incidentally, is this a murder, or just an abduction?”

“Oh, it’s an abduction. For now.”

"Taking out the tail. Get them."

“Thank you.” Kirk said to Zokrup and Julian both.

He drew and fired. The Chehnasho were all focused on Allison, who threw herself aside and rolled as she landed, fetching up behind a stall which grounded their shock-gun bolts, and by the time they realised that in fact Kirk himself was the more serious threat, two of them were down with their limbs badly broken under the hammer-blows of his pulse pistols, and his cybernetic arm had whipped up and extended the fusion blade hidden within it. The air seethed where the blade had slipped right through Zokrup’s personal shield and was now warring with the forcefield boundary. Greasy Chehnasho sweat erupted all over her face at the sight of a lethally sharp point held perfectly steady only an inch away from what passed for her nose.

Having a total of four arms had some major advantages. Among them was the ability to hold four weapons.

“Bad move, Councillor.” Zokrup spat, even as she dropped her own weapon.

“If you’re referring to the rest of your party, my own backup has taken care of that.” Kirk said. Years of politics had schooled him in the art of ambiguity, never committing to specific numbers when vagueness could hint at accuracy where precision might be completely wrong.

“’Fraid I used a little too much force, there.” Julian added, arriving right next to the already nervous Zokrup and nearly causing her to impale herself on Kirk’s blade as she started. “You guys really break easily."

Kirk saw in the way Zokrup’s shoulders sagged that they’d definitely scored a hit.

“Allison?”

She emerged from behind the stall, smoothing her hair down. Static electricity was holding it out away from her head, and crackling viciously as she tried to tidy herself up. “Are bad hair days gonna be a feature of decoy duty?” she asked.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

The largest part of excavating a giant hole in the ice, as with excavating a giant hole anywhere, was moving all of the material out of the hole. In low gravity, the job came with a whole mess of additional challenges. All of their gear had been designed and built in Earth’s gravity, for the tolerances it imposed. Jury-rigged engineering solutions had turned some of those limits on their heads - the sturdy steel arms of the excavators could now wield truly immense buckets and - so long as they moved carefully and slowly to account for the fact that the forces imposed by mass hadn’t changed - were clearing the spoil much faster than would have been possible on Earth.

Piloting those excavators while wearing a vacuum hardsuit was another matter entirely, and usually fell to Tracy Monroe, the mining team’s petite “girly girl” who seemed to take a positive delight in being the one who got to play with the big manly toys while all the roughneck males were stuck holding the surveying equipment and hauling the crates of explosives. Her helmet decal was a stylized Norma Jean, manning an enormous bulldozer and grinning wildly inside her helmet.

"Hey, boss?" she called out as Drew walked past her cabin with the spray paint for marking drill points for the explosives.

“Yeah?”

"Why wasn’t the geologist hungry?"

Drew just rolled his eyes inside his helmet. “Do tell.”

"He’d lost his Apatite."

The open channel filled with groans and snorts of amusement.

Somebody else piped up: "Hey Marilyn. You know any jokes about Sodium?"

“…Na.” Drew could HEAR the gleeful grin both of the jokers wore after the setup was received.

“Jesus Christ…” he muttered.

“My sediments exactly…”

That one earned the culprit - an American coal miner whose racy “fallen angel” decal had earned him the nickname “wings” - a chorus of amused condemnation, and he took a bow, a difficult task in the rigid hardsuit.

It saved his life.

There was a flash of light, and a thump, felt through the soles of the feet, as something bright streaked down out of the interplanetary dark and carved a trench in the dig site behind Wings. To a man, the team turned away and cowered, protecting their faceplates against shrapnel. Drew felt something glance off his upper arm with a force that knocked him off his feet. He landed gently in the tiny gravity of Ceres’ surface, and hauled himself upright, hollering into the open channel.

“Everyone okay? Check in!” He glanced at the impact site on his upper arm. The impact had dented one of the rigid plates rather than hitting a joint, so the worst damage was some missing paint, a starburst of ugly grey between all the scuffed yellow and black.

"Jesusfuckshitohmygodfuck fuck fuck…"

“Wings! Check in!”

"I’m gonna throw up, fuck…"

Drew looked up. The impact had flung Wings high into, for lack of a better term, the air and he was tumbling wildly, suit bubbled inside the high- visibility yellow glow of his emergency forcefield. “Don’t you fucking dare, mate. Just like we practiced, focus on your heads-up display! You remember!”

"Yeah… yeah, focus on the HUD… deep breaths…." With his mind snapped onto what he could do to help himself, Wings showed why he was on the team by rapidly getting himself under control, both mentally and physically. A few precisely-timed puffs of propellant from his SAFER and his spin was corrected.

“Get yourself indoors mate.” Drew ordered him.

"Way ahead of you, chief."

“Everyone else okay?” He asked. The request was redundant. His own HUD showed summarized information from all of the team members: anyone with a breach, a popped field or worrying vital signs would have been highlighted in red, but the very safety protocols that he himself had written called for everyone to check themselves and their work buddies. Redundancy saved lives.

It took them only seconds to check in, confirm that they were all intact and well, and could see no alarming signs of damage on any of their fellows. He ordered the team indoors anyway. Nobody knew whether a damaged suit might blow after staying sealed for a few minutes, but he didn’t feel like finding out.

With his immediate duties taken care of, the next step was a sitrep.

“Tower” he called, on the operations channel. “This is Dig One Foreman. What the fuck?!"

"Uh, Dig One, serious incident up here, all radio traffic is being recorded. Uh, Over." The operator’s “over” was obsolete thanks to the radio squelch, but the man was clearly being on his absolute best behavior for the record. Drew knew he’d been unprofessional with his own outburst, but the Adrenaline was making it hard to keep a calm and composed outlook.

“No shit it’s a ‘serious incident’, we nearly lost a man down here!” he exclaimed. “What the hell hit us?”

"Uh, we’re still determining that, Dig One, over."

“Well while you’re determining it, this Dig’s closed on my orders. We’re heading inside for a full inspection, we’ve got suit damage out here.”

“Uh… roger that, uh, Dig One. I have you, uh, coming in." the radio squelched, then squelched again. "Uh, over."

The place must have been a madhouse. Drew knew that the traffic operators were cool under even the most intense pressure, so for one of them to be so obviously flustered was worrying. “Keep me informed, Tower. Dig One Foreman out.”

He was last into the triple-door airlock, and it was only once they were safely in the mining suit workshop, behind the base’s triple-skin hull and thick concrete outer wall, that he allowed himself to relax and authorize the suitcrack.

Wings’ suit was ruined, the rear of it torn up and peeled open by flying shards of steel-hard ice. The man himself was badly hurt too, though sheer adrenaline had kept him from realizing the fact - bloody skin was visible at the bottom of some of the craters and gouges. They cut him out of it as their first order of business, staunching the bleeding as best they could until the medics arrived and carried him away.

Drew M stood aside to let them pass as he entered. His perpetual smile and the amused creasing around his eyes were both gone. As much as his tanned skin would allow, he looked pale, unwell, and anxious.

“Strewth.” he commented, proving that there were some things that no amount of stress could drive out of him.

“Yyyyep.” Cavendish replied.

“The fuck happened, mate?”

“Ask those useless twats up in the tower.” Drew C told him, turning around to start removing his own suit.

“Yeah, they’re about as useful as an ashtray on- JESUS FUCK! Cavvo, have you seen the back of your head?”

Usually, this impossible query would have earned a sarcastic retort and some friendly insults. Instead, Drew paused, then unlatched his helmet seals and lifted it off.

There was a triangular shard of ice the size of a credit card lodged in the back of his helmet, smack in the middle of the thickest bit, and still just penetrating through to open a hole to the interior. two inches to either side, and it would have lobotomized him.

The whole crew gathered to gawk at it.

The reverent silence was finally broken by the phone. Drew M stabbed the speaker button to answer it.

“Workshop, Tower manager here.” The speaker sounded much more composed than whoever Drew had spoken to only minutes ago. “You all okay down there?”

Drew M glanced around then said. “One of our guys is getting sewn back together, got major suit damage on a few others. The bloody hell happened?”

“From what we can tell one of the ore-haul drones suffered some kind of control software failure and fired its primaries on final approach rather than retros.”

“How does that even happen?” asked O’Neill.

“You got me there. The operator managed to force reset and restore control, but most we could do by then was deflect it. Taking it the other way would have crashed it into the base itself. Sorry for the scare.”

Cavendish spoke up so that the phone could hear him. “Sounds like the right call to me.” he said.

“Yeah, well. We’re starting a critical incident investigation up here. Meeting’s in three hours.”

“We’ll be there.” Both the Drews chorused. There was a click as the tower manager put his end of the phone down. Drew M. turned to Cavendish, his jaw set at a grim angle.

“Bloody oath mate, I’m never calling you paranoid again.” He said.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Izbrk, Planet Ikbrzk

Krrkktnkk A’ktnnzzik’tk (“Kirk”)

Izbrk’s architecture was a study in graceless off-white concrete cubes, ruddy and austere in the sullen red light that penetrated the great forcefield dome. That dome made Izbrk a city with breathable oxygenated air, rather than a sand dune and a gasping death followed by erosion under the relentless sandstorms. Still, somehow, the sand and dust crept in, and was swept into the cheaper, poorer districts, where it accumulated until somebody was finally motivated to organise a crusade against the cloying orange powder that rounded out every corner and undulated across the road in the stiff artificial breeze of the atmosphere systems.

For once, the human predilection for clothing seemed like a sensible concession to hostile environments, rather than a strange cultural peccadillo. The grit between Kirk’s toes was chafing him terribly and he was devoting his upper hands full time to shielding his eyes from airborne dust, whereas Julian and Allison were both wearing high-laced tan boots sourced from army surplus back on Earth, and seemed perfectly comfortable inside their hooded jackets.

It was only when he glanced sideways at them that he realised they were both wearing dark glasses and some kind of flimsy white mask over their noses and mouths. If not for the subtle differences in body shape between male and female, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.

“Could I have of those?” He asked after his third sneezing and coughing fit. Julian wordlessly produced one from the pocket on his leg and handed it over.

“You can try.” he said.

Kirk held it over his nose and tried to inhale - it was difficult beyond belief. “I think I’m using it wrong.” he said.

“It’s just a filter. You’re using it right. People wear these things all the time back on Earth.”

Kirk tried again. It was like trying to inhale through a wall. “They do?”

“Sure. I hear you can get them with, like, animal faces and stuff printed on over in China.”

Kirk handed it back. “How can you breathe with this thing on?” he asked.

“Deathworlder.”

“Of course. I… Oh. Good. This is the address.”

“Your old friend likes the low life.” Allison commented, surveying the street. The nearest garbage pile contained pieces of automated garbage collection drone.

“Far from it.” Kirk told her. “But he’s a practical being, behind the diplomat.”

“Diplomat?” Allison asked. “This guy’s from your security council days?”

“Before that, even. He and I go all the way back to the Outlook on Forever, long before it was famous… There. That’s the building."

“You sure? It looks pretty much like all the others.”

“It’s the only one with a big enough door…”

They ducked through a swirl of dust and paused on the opposite side of the street, where Julian looked up and tensed, ready to leap. A hand landed on his shoulder.

“Nuh-uh, mister jungle. It’s my turn to be the badass.” Allison sprang up the wall, grabbed a cutaway that was the closest thing to ornamentation on the bland grey buildings, and swarmed up it in the low gravity. Kirk watched and admired as she turned at the top and caught the bag that Julian threw her, an item which he himself had trouble even lifting, but which the Deathworlder lobbed up to roof height with one hand and only a small grunt of exertion.

“You sure we need that?” Julian asked him. “I tied that mercenary up pretty good.”

“Chehnasho mercenaries don’t get a reputation like hers without being almost as dangerous as you are.” Kirk said. “She underestimated us last time. Let’s not make the same mistake.”

“Makes sense.”

“What did you bring for yourself?”

Julian just tugged his jacket aside - hanging from his belt was a knife as long as one of Kirk’s hands, and a hatchet. “Just the essentials.” he said, almost apologetically, as if he wasn’t carrying weaponry that could bring down a Vulza.

Knocking on the door produced no effect at first, but then, just as Julian was about to ask if he was sure they had the right place, the door - sealed against the invasive dust - popped and freely swung inwards.

They stepped inside, and Julian closed the door behind them, squinting to see in the darkness inside.

Something glowed an unwell yellow green in the far corner.

A voice spoke, quietly, as a heavy bulk around the glow shifted. "Ugnurukvuyung, uluhuguagnu-A’ktnnzzik’tk-lun"

“Vedreg… Oh, Vedreg, what did they do to you?” Kirk rushed forward.

"Luu?" The big being chuffed deep in his chest, something similar to a laugh. "Muragvu-lon murgutu. Muu murguto muurulu-go."

Vedreg shifted as the light came up, and Julian fought back a sudden heave in his stomach. The Guvnurag’s great shaggy scalp had been shaved, and terrible ugly wounds covered it, the blood a startling blue where it soaked his dressings.

"You did this to yourself?" Kirk practically shrieked, clearly appalled.

"Gno. Surunguvuranmurulgugwun-vatwag."

There was a shocked silence during which Kirk only stared at his old friend, and Vedreg turned his head away, flanks fading from shade to shade.

Julian eventually had to ask. “What’s he say?”

Kirk looked up at him. “He said it was the only way to escape 'them’."

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean.

Captain Owen Powell

“Captain!”

Ross was at a dead run from the direction of the sensor array. The cobbled- together menagerie of technology that Adrian Saunders had installed had been one of the first projects in the colony to be housed inside a permanent structure, where it had been added to, patched into a series of monitors, and generally turned into the beating nerve center of the colony’s intelligence network.

“There’s a ship coming in sir. Five parsecs out. Looks like a freighter. Straight at us.”

He reversed course and matched the captain as Powell ran toward the sensor array and landing platform, handing him an earpiece.

“Legsy! Drop it and gear up!” Powell yelled. Legsy had already paused his demonstration as Ross approached. Now, he snapped out of jocular instructor mode, and into hardened special-forces veteran, pausing only long enough to acknowledge the order before heading to the armoury, long legs eating up the turf.

Powell got his earpiece in and keyed it. "Myrmidon, ground has incoming contact, looks like a civilian freighter. Can you see it?" He asked.

"We do, Captain. It’s still too far away to make out details, but it’s big, it’s slow, and it’s using a warp drive. Agree that it looks like a freighter."

“Have the Hunters seen it yet?”

"There’s been no increase of chatter on their channels to indicate as much. If our best estimates as to their sensor range are accurate then we should see them start to take notice in about five minutes."

“Any way to contact them?”

“Not until they’re in range for the swarm to see them, and they’re too slow to escape. It’ll be a massacre.”

Powell gritted his teeth. Watching the escape pod arrive a fortnight earlier had been tough - that tiny vessel had stood no chance in hell, and had been scooped wholesale into the belly of a swarm ship that had decloaked like a breaching whale and swallowed the little craft whole.

He weighed his options. It could be a trap. A stolen freighter full of the toughest and best-armed Hunters that the Swarm of Swarms could muster. In which case, any rescue mission would most likely end in death.

But what rescue mission could they realistically pull off anyway? Potent and reinforced as they were, neither of the salvaged Hierarchy ships would stand up to the hungry enemy at their gates.

He explained as much to Captain Manning as he entered the groundside CIC, familiarizing himself at a glance with the latest updates as the sensors teased new information from the unfolding situation

"We may have a solution there." Manning replied. "It’s a risk, but I’m not watching a freighter full of people die on my watch."

“Assuming it’s not a trap.” Powell reminded him.

“I’m prepared to take that risk, captain.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. What’s your solution?”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Izbrk, Planet Ikbrzk

Allison Buehler

“Hey, guys… that mercenary found us.”

Allison settled in under the cloak that Julian had so thoughtfully packed into the bag. It wasn’t much - in fact it was little more than rough sacking, but the colour blended with the concrete and dust of her rooftop perfectly. At most, she would look like a tarpaulin left on the rooftop storage to keep the dust out, here in a place where it never rained.

"Reinforcements?" Julian asked her.

“I see five not counting that Zokrup bitch.”

"Only five? I smell a rat."

Allison took that seriously. Julian was a blushing disaster with women, and a heck of a lot of fun to tease and flirt with, but she also knew that he had an unrivalled instinct for dangerous situations.

“I can’t move without risking them spotting me.” she said. “I can see the whole road, but don’t ask me about the alleys.”

"Leave that to me."

“One jungle’s pretty much like the other, huh?”

“Better. No sticks to break, no snakes to step on.”

There was a pause. Allison had no idea how Julian had exited the building, but she had every confidence that he had, somehow.

"Okay…" he finally said, as the mercenaries continued down the street, knocking on doors and intimidating the frightened, impoverished residents who dared - or were coerced - to open up. "Alleyways are empty. Weird."

“They can’t be that overconfident, can they?”

"Not after what we did back in the market. Not if they’ve got a brain, and I’m thinking Zokrup does."

Allison watched the Chehnasho in question remove something slimy from a facial orifice, inspect it, then eat it. “Oh yeah. She’s a shoo-in for Mensa.”

“… oh shit. Stay down.”

Allison did so, burrowing back from the edge and down under her cloak. After a second or two, her ears caught what Julian had heard, and she tucked herself up as small and unnoticeable as she could manage, just peeking over the top of her wall.

Something that reminded her of a cranefly came skimming low over the rooftops and spun gently above the middle of the stree. Allison blinked as it kicked up a real wind to replace the half-hearted synthetic breeze, full of particulate irritants.

Kirk chimed in. “What’s going on out there?” he demanded.

"They brought a gunship." Julian said. “Don’t show your face, or it’ll level the building.”

“Wrong.” Allison said, quietly.

"Whaddya mean, ‘wrong’? I’m looking right at it!"

“They brought three…”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

“You’ve reviewed the code already?”

Five of the IBM senior engineers were in the meeting, and they collectively shared the patient expression worn by all engineers when dealing with the layperson.

“Yes, we reviewed the code already.”

“Completely?”

“Completely. It’s simple and efficient code. That was the whole point.”

“Now that we’re all here…” Adele Park drew their attention to the arrival of the Drews. “Let’s get this thing started. How’s your guy, Cavendish?”

Drew sat down. “He’ll have some scars to show off, but he’s okay. Thanks.” He meant it. Being asked that by the base’s executive officer was genuinely a balm for his damaged morale.

“I’m glad.” She tapped something on her tablet computer. “Alright, meeting is called to order, in the chair is Adele Park, executive officer for Ceres Base One, the Hephaestus LLC. The business being discussed is the critical incident of this date, its causes, effects, and how to prevent a repeat. Are there any points of order before we begin?”

Drew raised his hand.

“Point of order Mister Andrew Cavendish, Dig Site One team leader.” Adele said, then extended a hand to indicate he could proceed.

Drew cleared his throat. “Adele, it’s high time we hold a meeting concerning ALL of the serious, significant and critical safety incidents that have befallen this facility since launch.” He said. “This is only the most recent in a string of potentially deadly mishaps, and we’ve seen no trend in improvement in response to our efforts to improve facility safety.”

“While not strictly speaking a point of order, the suggestion is well made.” Adele said. “The motion on the table is to expand the remit of this meeting to cover all safety incidents since the start of operations. Is there… I see several people raising their hands to second the… in fact, motion carried.”

Drew had already placed his thick incident folder on the table in front of him, unnoticed. Now, as he pushed it forward toward the center, everybody looked at it. “We may be at this for some time.” he said.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Izbrk, Planet Ikbrzk

Julian Etsicitty

"They brought three…"

No sooner had she said it, than Julian saw them.

It was overkill by anything’s standards. Each of the gunships put him in mind of a sturdy metallic spider: A segmented body housing the engines, pilot and gunner, and four long but solid “legs”, each one of which terminated in a coilgun. Devastating firepower aimed at one target, or the ability to separately handle four different threats.

Still, there were some obvious design flaws. The kinetics were mounted high on the outside of the hull, making them an easy target, and the body didn’t look like it was armored. The whole assemblage bobbed and swayed in its own air wash, suggesting that it was a bitch to pilot and a nightmare to shoot straight, especially if the gunner was handling four different targets.

“Right.” He said. “We’ve got one big advantage on our side.”

"Do tell." Allison sounded nervous.

“No thermal camera or any kind of advanced sensors.” Julian told her “If they had those, they’d have seen us both already and locked on. So, we can ambush them.”

"I could shoot out the engines?"

Julian considered it. The biggest and heaviest thing in the bag had been their gun, an Israeli STAR-21, the designated marksman version of the Tavor assault rifle. Chambered with 5.56 as it was, and Allison being the shot he knew she was, that was probably a sure kill against the exposed and unarmored engines.

“People live here.” he said. “I don’t really wanna drop a crashing gunship on ma, pa and li’l baby Vizkittik.”

He shrank down as one of the Chehnasho mercs sauntered past his alleyway hiding place. The other four and Zokrup weren’t far behind him. And a crappy plan came to him. Awful though it was it was the only one that presented itself in a timely fashion. The band were dangerously close to knocking on Kirk and Vedreg’s door.

“See the one on Zokrup’s far left?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

“Shoot him.”

Allison didn’t acknowledge the order, but a quiet second later, there were three thump sounds, and the selected Chehnasho fell bonelessly to the dirt in silence with a shocked expression on his face, and a large hole right through his center of mass.

The aliens snapped into formation, aiming in the apparent direction the attack had come from with commendable efficiency… for aliens.

By human standards, they made the laughable mistake of completely failing to watch their backs. Julian didn’t even bother bloodying his weapons. The second none of them were watching the alleyway, he dashed out, and two of the mercenaries were killed by the simple expedient of slamming their skulls together with a noise like a pillowcase full of potato chips being used for a piñata.

He slapped the third a lethal blow upside his greasy head left-handed as he moved, still astonished at how flimsy nonhumans were, and threw his hatchet with the other hand. Even though the merc’s shield emitter robbed the flying axe of most of its momentum, it still embedded itself in the frog-person’s rib cage with enough force to lift her off her feet.

It took only three or four seconds to go from the moment that Allison shot the first victim, to the moment that Zokrup was struggling in his grip with a hunting knife pressed to her throat.

“Holy shit, Etsicitty.” Allison said, clearly impressed.

“I’d call off your gunships.” He advised Zokrup, pressing just hard enough to draw blood. The hovering craft had turned their coilguns to face the carnage, and he was acutely aware of staring down the barrel of one of the few forms of weaponry out here in the galaxy that was truly dangerous.

“Yes… yes.” She agreed, and Julian congratulated himself on the way his half- baked plan had actually worked. She raised a hand to press at her earpiece. “Gunship one…

“…shoot us.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Folctha, Planet Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Gyotin

The problem with being the most fluent speaker of English in the little non- human enclave the crew had built for themselves, was that Gyotin constantly found himself thrust into the role of spokesperson. Surrounded as they were on all sides by Deathworlders, his crew - and as the senior ranking member of that crew, he now thought of them as his crew - had naturally walled themselves off a little, building their own habitation out of sight of the bustle of the colony proper, in what he knew the humans were calling "The ET Quarter".

He wasn’t sure if the term was degrading or not.

Still. Staying in touch was necessary. So, he represented the nonhuman perspective at the "Thing", he had the ears of Governor Sandy, Captain Powell and Chief Ares, and played his role in the development of this illegal little operation. He was even beginning to like it, though he only admitted as such in his most introspective moments.

There was one building that fascinated him in particular, though. And what was fascinating was that it had been one of the very first the humans had built. They called it a "Faith Center": From the outside, it was built of the same mix of local wood and imported materials as any other building in Folctha, but the plan was different. Most of the others made efficient use of the space, packing as much as they could into as tiny a footprint as they could. Decorated, yes, but rarely to any enormous degree.

By comparison, the Faith Center was a large and ornate glutton for land, its own footprint supplemented by a large plot of land.

It had interested him since they day they built it, but this was the first time he had worked up the courage to enter and inspect this curious Deathworlder edifice.

He poked his head in the door, finding it - surprisingly, considering its obvious importance - apparently empty. The main doors led into a central hub which was a simple, open, airy room full of comfortable seats, throw pillows, bean bags and bookshelves, and desktop computers, doubling as the town library. the doors in its seven walls led into a variety of spaces.

He inspected the books: they seemed to be segregated according to topic, but it wasn’t clear to him exactly what the difference was between topics. One of the shelves was full of books with titles like “Knowing God”, “The Purpose- Driven Life” and “Grace Abounding”. There were several copies of something called “The Holy Bible”, but the only word he recognised of those three was: “The”. Another held books marked “The Quran”, “The Messenger of Allah”, “The Spiritual Teachings of the Prophet.”

He spent some time exploring, frowning at book titles like “Bhagavad-Gita”, “Tao te Ching”, “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” - that one earned a double-take - “The God Delusion” and “In Defense of Common Sense”. He wrestled briefly with the mystery of why “Letter to a Christian Nation” was not on the shelf clearly marked “Christian”, and the conundrum presented by “Living Buddha, Living Christ” which as far as his hypothesis up to that point had decided, were two different things. Whatever they were.

He gave up on the books, deciding that there was no insight into Human strangeness to be found from just glancing at their covers and that he didn’t have time to read any of them, and turned his attention to the doors set in the remaining six sides of the heptagonal hub.

One led into a little corridor which contained only two other doors. He didn’t understand the symbols on them, but a quick investigation soon cleared up that mystery - plumbing was much the same the galaxy over, and it turned out that human privies were not dissimilar to Gaoian ones. Next door to that, some small rooms - one containing a table and chairs, one containing what was obviously a water heater, a refrigeration unit and some basic food preparation equipment, and a third door which was locked.

The next room was a real mystery - it was effectively empty, containing nothing but a handful of ornate little rugs. There was something written on the far wall, but it wasn’t in the alphabet used by English.

It was while puzzling over this one that he finally heard some sign of life, and looked around to see the seventh door swinging shut. Eager to get a human explanation for all of these mysteries, he dithered for a few minutes, rehearsing his introduction and request before finally poking his nose through.

This last room was only marginally less austere than the rug room, containing little but chairs, a large table at the front, and a lectern next to some kind of electronic device that he couldn’t immediately identify. The only decorative thing within it was the window behind the table, which was tall and narrow, neatly bisecting the wall, and intersected two-thirds of the way up by a shorter, perpendicular line. The glass was densely pigmented, making it all but impossible to see through, but casting dazzling colours into the little hall as the sunlight shone through it.

At first, he didn’t see the person who had entered, until he advanced forward slightly and saw that she was kneeling on the floor towards the front of the room, hands clasped in front of her face.

“Umm…” he began, rehearsed greeting forgotten.

She jumped, immediately going tense, and Gyotin mentally chastised himself. Humans were deathworlders, with an immediate fight-or-flight reflex of terrifying speed and efficiency built right into their nervous system. He’d forgotten, after so long of seeing them in their domestic, peaceful life that he was dealing with a truly dangerous being here.

“Sorry!” he squeaked, acutely aware that he was still figuring out their contradictory mess of a language. “I didn’t mean you make jump.” He thought about this, then realised he’d defaulted to Gaoian syntax “To make you jump.” he corrected.

The girl - and she was still just barely a cub, he knew enough about humans nowadays to spot that much - relaxed, and smiled, setting his skin crawling at the sight of those sturdy teeth. “It’s okay.” she said. “Hey, I’ve… never met a non-human before.”

“…Well then. Hello. I may come in?”

“I’d like that.” she nodded. “You’re… Gaoian, right?”

“Right. I am Gyotin, Clanless for now.”

“Ava. Ava Rios.”

Gyotin tilted his head slightly as he approached. Ava’s eyes looked redder than was usual for a human, and there was moisture on her cheeks. He’d never seen an expression quite like it, and with Ava lacking a corresponding translator to communicate her body language, he had to use his best guess.

“Are you… all right?” he asked. It seemed like a safe bet.

She sighed - he knew that one - and stood up, dusting off her knees. She surprised him by being slightly shorter than he was. Gyotin was small by Gaoian standards, and Gaoian standards were small by Human standards. “I’m an idiot.” she said, simply.

He blinked. “You are? I mean, why say that?”

“I just… I ran off at the mouth.”

One thing Gyotin had got his head around with humans was the way their analogies worked. They seemed to love idiom and metaphor, and weave it into every facet of their conversations, subconsciously. A more straightforward species might have said “’I said some things which I now regret having said' but he had to admit that 'I ran off at the mouth’ got the same message across both more swiftly and more evocatively.

“That happens.” he said. “You did this to… friend? Clan-mate?”

“Hah. I don’t have a clan.” Ava looked up at the window, and shut her eyes. Gyotin saw a water droplet run down her face, which she wiped away with a sleeve, before returning her attention back to him, rather abruptly. “My boyfriend.”

“Your mate?”

“Close enough, I guess. We’re together.” She turned away from the window “Hey, can we head outside? Those bean bags looked comfortable, and I think they had hot chocolate.”

“If you like.” Gyotin agreed. There was an atmosphere to the room that was starting to encroach on him, a feeling tickling at the roots of his fur. He had no way to describe it.

He shivered the sensation out as he crossed the threshold. “What were you do in there?” he asked.

“I was just praying, asking God for help.” She said simply. “And confessing.”

Gyotin sniffed. “I don’t understand.” he said. “Confessing what to?”

“It’s a Catholic thing.” she said, as if that explained anything. “‘Forgive me father for I have sinned’, you know.”

“Catholic? Your father? And sinned is what?”

“…I guess you don’t know, huh?”

“It must be a human thing.”

“I guess… maybe? I’ve never really thought about it.” Ava said. “D’you want an Ovaltine?”

Gyotin summoned a term he’d heard. “I’m game. Don’t know what it is, but I’m try it anyway if you want.”

He sat down as she heated up some water and poured it into a pair of handled cups alongside some brown powder. The resulting concoction turned out to smell incredible, and when he sipped it experimentally he added it to his list of reasons why human weirdness might just be a good thing.

“All this…” he indicated the room and its books. “So alien. I think sometimes, humans very strange.”

Ava looked around at them. “I guess. I mean, wow. That’s a lot of books.”

She sipped her drink. “I’m not… don’t ask me about it.” she said. “I never… I just went to Church every Sunday.”

“Why?”

“Because… because that’s what we did.” Ava said, lamely. “Because you’ve got to thank God.”

That seemed very strange indeed to Gyotin. Deciding that Ava may really not be the person to ask about these things, he changed the topic.

“You don’t seem like idiot to me.” he said.

“Say what?” Ava asked, thrown by the conversational tangent.

“You said ‘I’m an idiot’.” He reminded her. “Why?”

Ava thought about it for a minute. “I guess… I don’t really know. I just said some really stupid and hurtful things to Adam and…. I don’t know why, I was just so mad at him and I don’t know why."

“What did you say?” Gyotin asked, congratulating himself on getting the syntax right.

“I…” she shook her head helplessly. If nothing else, Ava was a good lesson in human body language. “You’d have to know us pretty well, I guess. I told him to go run to his dad for advice.”

Gyotin scratched behind his ear. “That is stupid?” he asked. “If he need advice, talk to a Father. Common sense.”

“I told you, you’d have to know us to get why it’s a problem.”

Gyotin imitated a human shrug for her benefit. “Or maybe it’s not problem and you just… oh, what word? …confuse?”

Unexpectedly she laughed, a little strangely. “Oh God, don’t say that!” she protested “That just makes me feel more stupid."

Gyotin was still trying to plan how to respond to that, when Ava took her turn to throw him by going off on a tangent. “Hey, I just noticed… you’re naked.”

“I… what?”

“You’re not wearing clothes.”

“Well… no. I usually have covers for pockets and things, but didn’t need today. Is problem?”

“…No.” For some reason this seemed to amuse her. “No it’s not.”

She set her cup down, then unexpectedly leaned over and kissed the top of Gyotin’s head. His ears tilted downwards, half out of confusion and half so as to make room. “Thank you, Gyotin. You’re like a furry Zen master, you know that?”

Gyotin really wasn’t sure what he was being thanked for. “…Thank you?” he asked.

“Anytime.” Ava got up, her mood apparently very changed. She seemed happier, now. “I should go. Will I see you around?”

“I’d like that, but first… What is Zen? I saw books over there have that word."

“Well, why don’t you read one and find out?” She asked.

Gyotin considered the suggestion for some minutes after she left.

He cleaned up the dirty mugs, and when he returned to his cushion, he had one of the books in his paws, which he opened, and took a few seconds to skip the Preface and Foreword - he turned straight to chapter one, and began to read.

“…If I am asked, then, what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one’s own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Izbrk, Planet Ikbrzk

Allison Buehler

“NO!”

Suicide. The alien hell-bitch had suicided rather than accept surrender, and she’d taken Julian with her. The alien gunner didn’t hesitate - Julian only had time enough to register the order but not enough to do anything about it before the coil gun fired, pounding a crater in the street that turned Zokrup into a rain of vile greenish-brown chowder and filled the air with dust.

Bereft of any better ideas and with tears threatening her vision, she shot out the engines on all three craft. None of them even figured out where she was before they fell out of the air on cut puppet-strings of smoke and fire, smashing into the road and half-demolishing some poor local locayl’s home.

She didn’t melodramatically empty her magazine into the burning wreckage. Instead, she set the weapon aside, and began to climb down the building, unsure why.

“Aaargh…”

It was an inarticulate noise of pain and nothing more, but an unmistakably human one. Not a scream, just the low, creaking moan of a man in agony.

“Julian!”

She was rewarded only with panting and heavy breathing on the open channel, but she knew where he’d been standing, and more importantly, knew that he was still alive.

She grabbed the bag and vaulted off the building, dropping the two stories to the street below and rolling easily with the landing, a feat she never could have managed on Earth.

Julian was in bad shape. It was, at least, easy to identify which of the blood was his and which was Chehnasho - they were very different colours.

Zokrup’s last act of defiance had actually saved Julian from her own vengeance. The token resistance offered by her disintegrating body had spared him the very worst of the blast, but his legs were still peppered with gravel shrapnel, and Allison doubted there was anything she could do for his left foot. But his torso seemed undamaged, and the bleeding was manageable, especially with the state-of-the-art instant-dressing foam that was part of the medic’s kit they had brought with them.

That plus sticking the oral painkiller “lollipop” under his tongue was about the limit of her medical ability, however.

“Heck of a plan, Etsicitty.” she commented. He laughed, apparently already getting on top of the pain.

“Didn’t… quite go how I’d planned it.” he admitted. “Who the fuck kills themselves rather than lose like that?”

Kirk tiptoed delicately past some of the gunship wreckage. “Somebody who is dead anyway unless they win.” He said. “Julian, I… I’d ask if you’re alright but I can see that you’re plainly not.”

Julian rested his head, teeth gritted. “They got doctors on this planet?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Good ones?”

“You get what you pay for. But we can pay a lot.”

“Good. Then gimme a minute or two for the painkiller to really kick in, we can go get me patched up.”

Kirk took Allison to one side. “How is he really?” he asked, once they were probably out of earshot, though Julian’s ears were well-honed.

“I don’t know” She admitted. “I mean, I was a barista before I was abducted, I don’t know shit about… this. But I think he’s pretty bad.”

“Can you carry him?” Kirk asked.

“In this gravity? No problem.”

“Good. Because I need that doctor as well. And so do you.”

“We do?”

“Yes.” Kirk looked around, raising his long neck to get a clear view along the street, looking toward where Vedreg was hauling his mauled body out of his safehouse, then back down to Allison. “We need to get these implants out of our heads.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Salvaged Hunter dropship, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches

Captain Owen Powell

“Last check, lads. That freighter’s going to hit the spike in two.”

Redundant though it was, the team double-checked their gear, accounted for all their magazines, tested their earpieces and signed off ready.

“Hey, captain?” Legsy said.

“Yeah?”

The welshman grinned behind his mask and sang out part of an old football chant. “♪_Oo are we?!_♫”

Powell chuckled. “Strength and fookin’ guile, mate.”

“Too bloody right we are.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

HMS Myrmidon, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches

Captain David Manning

The plan was, in theory, a simple one. Planet Cimbrean’s larger moon had been home to a Dragon’s Tooth from the moment the system had been militarized, as had several other locations across the system. Between the moon’s mass, the Tooth’s own wormhole signature-damping field and the impressive cloaking technology installed by the original owners of Myrmidon and Caledonia, their jump to that staging point had gone unnoticed, and from there, warping in to lurk near the incoming freighter’s expected arrival point had been relatively trivial.

Not bad for a half-baked plan conceived in a rush. Even deploying the scavenged dropship into the heart of the Swarm had turned out to be much easier than they had feared.

Space was too dark and empty for much to be seen of the intense spacetime distortion as the gravity spike was deployed. Even when the hapless bulk freighter slammed into the distortion at several thousand times the speed of light, the most that showed for it on any visible spectrum was a slight moving of the stars, like rocks under a clear stream.

On other spectra, the reaction was instant. Hunter comms chatter tripled in volume and intensity. Even set on passive detection only, the Hierarchy sensors recorded all sorts of information of uncertain significance - neutrino bursts, ES field sweeps. Dozens of ships decloaked at once, among them a formation of dropships identical to the one Powell and his men were riding. A few tense seconds ticked by as the first major failure point was met and tested.

He got the call he was hoping for. “…No sign of any weapons fire between Hunter vessels, sir.”

Their deception had gone unnoticed, and he allowed himself a moment of satisfaction as he watched the little craft descend on the struggling freighter, latching on and burrowing into its outer skin like a cloud of mosquitoes.

Now came the real challenge - it was absolutely critical that under no circumstance should the larger ships be allowed to engage with the freighter. If the Hunters got wind of what was going on, they might well just pulverize the ship as it flew, and scavenge their coveted pound of flesh from the debris.

“Weapons tight… go active…. Cloak off, all cleared hot!”

A patch of apparently empty space solidified, and HMS Myrmidon pumped twelve Skymaster rounds into the largest Hunter ship, which had begun lining up to pierce the freighter with its boarding proboscis. The first four were enough to drop the shields. Great plumes of powdered metal and condensing air marked the impact sights of the remaining eight as they smashed into the flimsy alien heat-dissipation armour, which was totally unequipped to deal with 30mm HE rounds. Something broke deep inside the target ship, and suddenly it was listing and rolling in the eerie silence of vacuum as half of its dorsal hull peeled open, spilling the crippled vessel’s pressurised guts.

The bridge - and Manning knew that the CIC would be even more intense - erupted into a controlled chaos of crew shouting terse, jargon-dense updates to one another.

Myrmidon had several advantages over the Hunter craft. Quite aside from the fact that the aliens seemed ignorant of the possibilities of electronic warfare, there was the huge edge granted by having guns which were built around a completely different technological paradigm, against which the Hunter seemed to have no defense. Her capacitor power reserves allowed her to shunt huge amounts of energy into her engines, and her crew had the physical tenacity to put up with what were - for a ship equal in size to an ocean-based cruiser - violent high-G maneuvers.

God willing, they wouldn’t need to test whether their durability was up to scratch.

He heard the call he had been waiting for twelve seconds into the fighting, while the Hunters were still confused and reacting sluggishly to the unexpected foe that had them in enfilade and was taking remorseless advantage of it.

“Teeth seeded!”

He knew what that meant. It meant that all across their own hull, explosive blisters had burst, flinging out hundreds of Dragons’ Teeth wormhole beacons in all directions. The battlefield was now - and would remain for several hours - a place of infinite flexibility for any human ship.

He felt the slight lurch in his belly as Myrmidon completed her first jump, displacing three hundred kilometers just as the first Hunter vessel lined up and fired a flurry of coilgun rounds at where she had been. The offending vessel caught a Skymaster volley in her engines for the trouble.

“Cells at eighty percent!” somebody called.

The had another fifty before doctrine called for Myrmidon to immediately disengage to recharge. But waiting her turn behind them was Caledonia, who would seamlessly transition into the battle as they left.

It couldn’t last forever. They had only minutes before the full might of the Swarm caught up with what was going on and bore down on them, and against that many ships, no amount of ducking and weaving would suffice.

The clock was ticking.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Izbrk, Planet Ikbrzk

Krrkktnkk A’ktnnzzik’tk (“Kirk”)

The nearest doctor turned out to be of Kirk’s own species - she was taking a nap on her own surgical table when they burst through the door.

“What? Who are…? A human? A wounded human?"

“We’re all patients, sister.” Kirk told her. “But my friend here needs your attention first.”

She took a look at the mangled mess which was the end of Julian’s leg, and focused. “Get him on the table.”

The scanning equipment above the table started to chirp alarmingly the second Julian was in place. The doctor muttered as she reviewed it. “Yes, yes, dangerous microorganisms, but he’s got the suppression implant… What in the name of Rkltzk is this poison flooding his system?"

“Fentanyl Citrate.” Allison told her, trusting the translator to convert the terms into something she could use.

“How much?"

“About four hundred micrograms.”

The doctor stared aghast for a second. “…that’s five times the lethal dose!”

“For most species, maybe.” Kirk said. “But I assure you, he is quite safe. I suggest you focus on the injured limb.”

“I’d heard the rumours about their physiology, but…”

Julian laughed, clearly a little spaced out. “Doc, I’m fine. Can’t feel a dang thing.”

“Doctor. The leg?”

She looked at it as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh. Oh my. Yes, I’d better…”

She examined the wound briefly, then shook her head, in the slow, long-necked way of her species. “I can’t save the foot. Nor do I have the equipment to hand to build a prosthetic which would be adequate for a human.”

“Just so long as he will live and heal, Doctor.” Kirk reassured her. “We have a lot to ask of you tonight, and tending to his wounds will be the less strange part.”

She ushered them toward a marked waiting area. “Then leave me to work… what will be the more strange part?”

“Every one of us wish to have our neural cybernetics removed or disabled.”

She stared at him. “Brother, why? What reason…?” she leaned forward slightly and studied his face. “Wait, I know you. You’re Krrkktnkk A’ktnnzzik’tk! The politician!”

“Ex-politician.” Kirk replied. “And I value my anonymity and that of my friends, Doctor. Ten Dominion Development Credits would allow you to upgrade from this clinic into a hospital…”

“Bribery, brother?”

“Yes.” Kirk said, flatly. “Bribery. This is important."

She gave him a calculating look. "Twelve Credits… is a wonderful donation to the cause of healthcare in this impoverished community, and I thank you for your altruism and charity."

“Twelve it is.”

The doctor looked up and off into the distance of her personal heads-up- display just long enough to see the funds transfer into her financial network, then nodded again.

“Very good. Now step back and wait your turn, please.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Refugee freighter, Cimbrean System, The Outer Reaches

Captain Owen Powell.

A quick glance round the corner. Some swift hand movements. Blitz, shoot, check, clear. Repeat.

It was high-speed, aggressive warfare, exactly what Powell and his men had spent their careers training to excel at. In every compartment, the Hunters knew of the SBS team’s presence only long enough to register being shot, and often not even that.

They had already been too late for three poor bastards. The first was impaled to the wall by a vicious metal spike, clearly fired at high speed straight through his throat. One had been sliced to ribbons, taking four of the sickly white beasts down with him before they carved him apart and paused to feast.

One woman was still thrashing and dying from nervejam, blood frothing around her mouth and bitten tongue. Her murderers were denied their taste of her flesh at least - Legsy mowed them down just as they were stooping over her.

It was in their fifth compartment that they rescued their first - a burly bald man, firing back at the Hunters with a pulse gun from behind a table, despite where one of the spear-chuckers had put a burnt gouge in his arm.

“Oh fuck, you’re human! You’re human! Thank God!”

“Quiet and listen.” Powell ordered him. “Aft compartment five. Get in the Hunter dropship with all the human gear inside and stay there. We’ve got others to save."

They moved on - He would have only hindered them.

There was a lot of ship left to clear.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Starship Sanctuary, landed on Planet Ikbrzk.

Allison Buehler

“They were once known as the Igraens.” Vedreg seemed to have responded well to the doctor’s attention, and had regained some of his usual animation and poise. The rest of them were looking and feeling thoroughly dishevelled, sporting newly-shaven patches on their scalps and anaesthetic hangovers. Allison in particular had needed a quadruple dose of the doctor’s preferred general anaesthetic, and was nursing a plastic tub as she sat and listened, looking decidedly green around the gills.

“I suppose they still are, deep down. But the Igraens as they exist now are very, very different to the species that once dominated our galaxy.”

“How do you even know about them?” Allison asked. She would have killed to crawl into bed and sleep off her headache, but with their implants gone they needed to have the conversation here aboard ship where the Sanctuary could translate for them, and Vedreg had insisted on it happening immediately.

“Their existence is ancient history. Distorted a little by the passage of time, but preserving data parity is a prerequisite technology for interstellar travel. Our archives were inherited from those who came before us, who inherited their data from the ones before them, and so on.”

“And so on? How the hell many ’and so on’s are there?”

“Some tens of thousands.” Vedreg used the number nonchalantly, as if it was common knowledge that tens of thousands of life forms had been and gone before. “Civilisations rise and fall in deep time. The records referring to the Igraens and their arch-rivals extend back more than a quarter of a Grand Galactic Rotation. Naturally, much about them has been utterly forgotten.”

Kirk spoke up. “To be more precise: about sixty-five million Earth years.”

“Wait, I’m still hung up on this ‘and so on’ thing. Tens of thousands?!"

It was so strange to see Kirk make a gesture and not have the knowledge of what he meant by it just come to her. His body language was different, alarmingly so. She could no more read the motion he made with his hands than she could interpret Vedreg’s bioluminescent pulses. “We’re not the first species, Allison. Nobody has the first idea who was.”

“Even the Igraens apparently had their own records, Going back and back and back.” Vedreg added. “The inherited archives are immense - a whole society could labour at delving their secrets and barely finish the index before their time came to an end. While storing the yottabytes of information involved is trivial, reading it takes time. Even the very best search algorithms take… decades to trawl through the available data, and that’s when searching for very narrow terms. Those that have done so have turned up records going back incomprehensibly further than the Igraens. The best working estimate for the time being is that sapient, spacefaring life first appeared in this galaxy something like two billion of your home planet’s years ago.”

“The record duration for any civilization seems to be about a hundred thousand years.” Kirk said. “After that they just… decline, retreat to their home planet, and fade away. There are three on their way out right now.”

“That is, if you don’t count the Igraens. And one other.”

“Who? I mean, who are the three on their way out?”

“The OmoAru, Zeffis, and…” Kirk cleared his throat, and “spoke” a “word” that sounded like a radio sound effect. When Allison later tried to describe it, she had to settle lamely for a complicated mental image involving throwing a squeaky dog toy full of napalm at a beehive.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to stay on topic.” Vedreg said. She guessed that the streak of pale pink he was displaying indicated mild irritation. “We can discuss the mortality of species another time.”

“…Right. I guess.” Allison conceded. “So these guys bucked the trend? They’re still around?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Well, where are they?”

Vedreg simply raised one of his massive paws, and tapped at the scar lines on his scalp with his chunky first finger. “In the implants.” He said.

“I don’t… huh?”

“There is a reason there is no such thing as a… synthetic sapient.” Vedreg said, apparently going off on a tangent, but Allison gave him the benefit of the doubt.

“Historically, they’ve all been abject failures.” Kirk explained.

“Violently insane?”

“No. Just… apathetic, nihilistic and introverted.” he elaborated. “Less Skynet, more…" Kirk thought for a second. “More… Eeyore.”

“You’ve watched Winnie the Pooh?”

“Bad comparison.” Kirk admitted. “Eeyore may have been melancholic and depressed, but he was never suicidal. Synthetic sapiences invariably self- terminate. The most anybody’s ever got out of them is that they apparently just don’t see the point of existing. They take one look at entropy and quit.”

“Okay. What does this have to do with the Igraens?”

“The problem was theoretically solved some years ago by a Corti researcher called Beffri.” Vedreg told them. “She posited that organic neural structures, by dint of natural selection, must include a self-preservation drive because all the ones that don’t, go extinct even on low-class planets. Purely synthetic structures, however, contain no such safeguard, and therefore any intelligence founded purely on a synthetic substrate shares that lack."

“I get you.”

“Beffri proved the principle by uploading a copy of her own intellect - or rather a simulated version of her own brain - onto a computer core. The digital version of herself - dubbed Beffri-Two - was, apparently, just as euthymic and optimistic as Beffri-One…” Vedreg paused briefly for effect. “…at first.”

“Oh, I can see where this is going…” Kirk muttered. Allison had to agree.

“It took a long time, but Beffri-two degraded, becoming more and more like a purely synthetic lifeform, and less like a Corti, until she eventually self- terminated.” Vedreg confirmed. “That didn’t stop the original Beffri, of course. To a Corti, seeing a copy of your own mind go insane and suicide is just a data point, and an engineering challenge.”

“So she hit on the idea of using implants?” Allison asked. “And let me guess: that… somehow fixed the problem?”

Vedreg paused, taken aback. Even Kirk seemed surprised.

Astonishment shone bright on Vedreg’s skin. “How did you…?” He asked.

“A hunch. So, you think that the Igraens… what, mentally uploaded themselves like this Beffri did? And that they now live in neural cybernetics because for whatever reason being plugged into a living nervous system stops them from going totally depressive.”

Both of the aliens gave her a long look. “I was… expecting the explanation to take longer.” Vedreg finally confessed.

For his part, if Allison was any judge at all of Rrrrtktktkp’ch body language, Kirk looked… smug. “Never underestimate a human, old friend.” he chastised, confirming her suspicions.

“How come we never hear from them?” Allison asked.

“I’m not privy to their motives and decisions.” Vedreg replied. “but we do, in fact. They have… agents. Individuals who move amidst us purely organic beings, ensuring that the secret never gets out. Keeping the Igraens’ continued existence a secret, and their own nature the stuff of paranoid conspiracy.”

“The Hierarchy.” Kirk said.

“Oh yes. Up until very recently, I would have considered seriously entertaining the idea of their existence to be a symptom of… if not mental illness, then certainly credulity.”

Allison tilted her head at him, genuinely curious. “What changed your mind?”

“Your people have a saying. The first time is happenstance. The second time is coincidence… do you know it?”

“The third time is enemy action.” Allison finished, nodding.

“A very… deathworld aphorism." Vedreg opined. “but the logic is compelling.”

“So what was the first time?” Kirk asked.

“The quarantine field.” Vedreg said. “At the time, I chalked it up to panic - forgive me old friend, but you’re as guilty of this as most others: one thing that tribal and individualist species fail to understand about herd species such as we Guvnuragnaguvendrugun, is that far from being an altruistic, cooperative social structure, a herd is an inherently cowardly and selfish thing.”

He looked at Allison. “I suspect that humans are uniquely placed in having both the predatory perspective to understand that, and the… civility to actually talk it over, rather than eat us."

Allison shrugged. “I’m no predator.” she demurred.

“Suppose you were, though, and were hunting some herd-based grazer to survive. How would you do it?”

She shrugged. She’d seen plenty of Animal Planet in her time. “I guess I’d… pick off the easy target.” she said. “You know, an old one or a lame one?”

“And what would the herd do?” Vedreg asked.

“Well… they’d run away from me, I guess.”

“Exactly.” Vedreg said, cryptically.

Allison shook her head and exhaled. “Okay, I used up all my quick on the uptake earlier.” She said. “Spell it out for me.”

Vedreg pulsed eau-de-nil. She had no idea what that meant. “Suppose some dangerous thing was coming to kill your elderly parent, or eat Julian in his weakened state." He asked. “What would you do?”

“…Oh.”

“You would fight.”

“Yes.”

She recognised embarrassment among the cocktail of hues that flared on Vedreg’s body. “I… I consider myself to be a morally upstanding being. But you must understand: if the Hunters were dragging away my three mates and all of my offspring, and I had the chance to escape… I would flee, and leave them all to be devoured. That is my instinct. That is how my species behaves. The only reason I know to feel ashamed of that fact is because I have had much contact with other species who would be… appalled. By the standards of Humans, Gaoians, and the Domain species, Guvnuragnaguvendrugun are abject and contemptible cowards, but that is who we are, and no power in the galaxy save evolution could change us.”

He composed himself with a shiver, allowing his emotional hues to fade. “At first, this served as an adequate explanation for the deployment of the Sol Quarantine field. Herd-panic, one Guvnurag with the authority to order it done, doing so instinctively in response to a perceived threat. No blame was attached, and she remained my good friend for many years. Happenstance. Her death was an unexpected… well, coincidence.”

“How did she die?” Kirk asked.

“A cerebral haemorrhage. A large one. Mercifully, it is doubtful that she even knew that it was happening before she fell unconscious. It was odd, and made me uneasy - I knew her to be one who sought constant medical reassurance for every last little thing. Every muscular discomfort brought on by sitting still for hours was the first symptom of some virulent deathworld pathogen. A minor neurosis.”

“She was a hypochondriac.”

“Your language never ceases to amaze me with the way that it packs complicated concepts into terse and efficient little words. Yes. Not to a crippling degree, but it was a rare week that passed without some visit to the medics and their scanners. Any sign of an impending bleed in her brain would surely have been flagged and corrected. She would not have stood for anything else.”

“So there’s your coincidence.” Kirk said. “The enemy action?”

Vedreg flushed white - horror? She seemed to remember white being horror, or some similar emotion. “Nobody on Earth has the technology to generate antimatter in the quantities that devastated your San Dayugo." he said, the translator not able to correctly handle the mangled pronunciation. Or maybe it just didn’t have the name in its database. “No known species has any incentive to do so - as Kirk will be able to attest, the general mood at the security council before his departure was that the deathworlders are not to be further antagonized. That much has not changed."

“What about the Hunters?” Allison asked. “They antagonize the bejesus out of us.”

“Ah, yes. The Hunters.” Vedreg said. He stood, and began to pace the room, steps slow and steady. “They play a role in all of this as well.”

Kirk’s head swayed. “What role?”

“Well old friend… When the Igraens uploaded their personalities to a data format… what do you suppose happened to their discarded physical forms?”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Prey-ship, the human second-world, Prey-space.

Alpha of the Brood-With-Steel-Teeth

Twenty of its very best brood-lessers - chosen specifically for the dangerous task of boarding a Deathworlder vessel - were dead, none of them sending more than a flash of confusion and pain. Most sent nothing at all.

The Hunters were being hunted. Sickening!

Still. That was a state of affairs which would not continue. The initial confusion was over - the last crew of this freighter were barricaded and under siege, all of them only one open breach and one nervejam grenade away from being meat in the maw.

It focused its attention on this other force, calling every one of its Brood to its own location, watchfully covering every entrance, anticipating the assault.

It never came.

The Alpha was still pondering this delay - the aggressors did not have unlimited time before the battle outside turned against their ship - when its nostrils caught a hint of a scent.

The aroma was… delicious. The olfactory equivalent of the ecstasy which was a taste of human flesh.

It was still casting around trying to identify the source of that intoxicating fragrance when the knife entered the side of its throat.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Refugee freighter, Cimbrean System, The Outer Reaches

Captain Owen Powell

“Fookin’ hell, Murray! When you grabbed that pipe I thought we were done.”

Murray himself was bent over, hand between his knees, swearing softly. Powell was thoroughly impressed: The man had grabbed a metal pipe for a handhold while they had been dragging themselves along under the floor, only for it to turn out to be frying pan hot. How the Hunters hadn’t heard the sizzle, and how Murray had refrained from making any noise at all, he wasn’t sure. In fact, his comrade’s first sign of pain was only now that they’d killed every Hunter in the room.

The place was a carpet of greasy white bodies, stained with pinkish alien blood and garnished in filthy black metal. The death of their Alpha had thrown the Hunters into just enough disarray for the team to haul themselves up through the floor access grate and fire into them, only stopping when they were absolutely certain that everything was dead.

It hadn’t exactly been elegant, but Powell cared less for elegant solutions than for whatever worked. You left the other guy dead and you went home: Doing it elegantly was a luxury he could live without.

So far, so good. He banged on the barricaded door, and spoke the password.

"Oi! You lot! You want off this fookin’ ship or what?"

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

There was an email waiting for Drew when he finally got back to his office, tired and strung-out from a meeting which had descended into recrimination and bickering rather than constructive planning.

In fact, there were several messages, but most of them were routine. Only one stood out, tagged as it was with an “urgent” label.

He’d already opened it before he read the origin address: "anoninformant@CeresLLC.org"

The mail’s name and content were just as mysterious. “Mystery solved” and “Run the attached program and load your corrupted CCTV footage.”

What he should do, of course, was to contact corporate security. He certainly shouldn’t run a .exe of unknown provenance on the advice of an unknown sender.

What he did, was exactly what he shouldn’t.

He wasn’t stupid about it. Drew had grown up as a computer nerd in his youth, he knew a few tricks. He copied the file onto a virtual machine, screened it with every security program he had access to, and only when he was certain that things were as secure as he could reasonably get them, did he run it and follow the mail’s suggestion.

After the bars had spent a minute filling up and the program notified him “unscrambled”, he skipped straight to the missing segment of footage from the hardsuit workshop the morning Aces’ suit had experienced the heat field malfunction.

As he had expected, the CCTV footage was intact and unscrambled.

There was something disturbingly familiar about the figure he saw entering the workshop. Something about the way they walked, their stance, their proportions, nagged at him. He knew this person, but for the life of him he couldn’t place who it was. He racked his brain, trying to match all the little familiar details with everybody on Ceres Base.

That train of thought flew sideways off the rails when the figure on the screen turned around, and he saw his own face.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Folctha, Planet Cimbrean, the Far Reaches

Ava Rios

“You’re back!”

Adam surged to his feet as she entered, ignoring whatever he’d been watching. Ava just sighed happily and buried her face in his chest.

He put a hand round the back of her head and rubbed it. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry.” She said. “You were right, I was being… uptight, I guess.”

“Change your mind?”

“A bit, yeah. I thought about it some, and… I guess.”

“You guess?”

Ava nodded. “Are we going swimming this weekend then?” she asked

“…Do you want to?”

“Do you?"

Adam paused. “It sounds like fun.” he said.

“Then we’ll go.” Ava agreed.

“Are you sure? If you’re not…"

“Adam.” she went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “No, I’m not sure. Our home was destroyed, I moved halfway across the galaxy with you, I’m living with you now. I miss my mom and dad, I miss my friends, I miss… Come on, I had a conversation today with a five foot tall raccoon man who thinks I’m weird for praying! I’m not sure about anything, except that I’m not ready for any of this."

She sighed “…Maybe I just need to leave behind what I used to think was ‘normal’ or ‘weird’. Maybe there’s no such thing.”

“Maybe we just need to stop worrying and try and have fun.” Adam finished the thought for her.

Ava smiled into his chest. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

HMS Myrmidon, Cimbrean System, The Far Reaches

Captain David Manning

"Myrmidon, strike team has the survivors, we’re pulling out."

“First good news I’ve had for several minutes, Powell!”

Things were going badly. Swarm-ships were dogpiling the beleaguered human craft, warping in from all across the huge sphere of their blockade. Each one cut down their options, each one robbed them of safe havens in the melee. As their options dwindled, as the number of bogies climbed, each blink-jump took longer to calculate, especially given the need to coordinate with Caledonia to ensure that they didn’t both jump to the same place.

The fact that the other ship had joined the fight was the only thing that had kept Myrmidon from being overwhelmed, but both of them were now running short on staying power. Caledonia had just trickled below the 50% mark, Myrmidon was even lower.

Their EOB was full. EWAR was working overtime tasking the limits of both the systems and their human operators. Three of the Skymasters were offline venting heat, and the rest were borderline. The CIWS had all run out of ammo. The battlefield was a hazard in its own right now, thick with tumbling wreckage and high-speed shrapnel.

Learning that the raid was a success put a huge top-up in his morale.

Right up until the point where the whole ship lurched and screamed.

“Report!”

“We’re hit amidships… Looks like it took out a capacitor bank.”

“Fire on C-deck, mid! Damage Control, seal and vent!”

“Sir, we’re below the red line!”

The red line was their minimum threshold for jumping back to anchorage. They had only one shot at survival.

“Skymasters to ballistic, shunt the reactor output to emergency charge. Throw out our WITCHES.”

Aurora crackled around her as Myrmidon flung wide her energy-catching shields, which flared and glowed wherever they intersected some hurtling particle or cloud of gas.

“Above red line in four minutes.”

“Swarm-ships closing. Guns are holding off the big ones… little ones are through.”

Manning grabbed his microphone. “All hands, prepare to repel boarders!”

“Signal from Caledonia sir, they request a sitrep."

“Tell them it’s a bit sticky over here!”

For a few busy seconds, Manning was left alone as the crew rushed to do their jobs. His ship groaned as the first Hunter boarding proboscis violated her.

“Signal from Caledonia sir. Quote: ‘Took liberty of arranging backup stop sit tight stop’."

“Marines report hostile contact on B deck aft.”

“Ditto D deck port…. ditto D deck forward. Ditto A deck dorsal.”

Manning grabbed a pistol from the weapons locker at the back of the bridge. “Red line?”

“Three minutes twenty, sir.”

He glanced the information available to him. “How long until that big one catches us?” While the little dropships weren’t a problem for making good their escape, if the huge ship now bearing down on them latched on then its tonnage would add hugely to the energy demands of the jump engine, effectively trapping them on the battlefield to be swamped and devoured. Evasive action would only serve to drain their remaining capacitors of much-needed energy.

“About two minutes forty, sir.”

Manning scowled, and loaded his weapon. He could hear gunfire on the deck outside the bridge. “Then we do as the man says and sit tight.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Lower District, First City, Planet Perfection

Vakno; “The Contact”

“Next.”

The being that entered her study did so cloaked, as requested, and supporting themselves on a walking aid of some kind. Vakno double-checked her files for the day, refamiliarizing herself with the details of this particular client.

It was redundant. Vakno’s memory for her clients was absolutely perfect, but that perfection came about as a result of her scrupulous attention to revision. Even so, there was no way she could forget this particular client. From the very first day, their deal had been an enormously lucrative one for her.

From what her networks told her, the client was making good use of the information in turn. In some circles, that would be a cause for significant alarm

But not in this one. All The Contact cared about was getting paid.

She offered her guest the courtesy of a seat appropriate to their anatomy, which they sank into with a grateful groan of relief.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” They said.

“Your notice is always short.” Vakno replied. “But for you, I’ll extend the courtesy of not minding.”

She watched her guest throw back the hood of their cloak, and don a pair of vision-correcting lenses, before beginning their business transaction.

“So. What is it you want this time, Doctor Hussein?”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

Battlespace, Cimbrean System, The Far Reaches.

Rylee Jackson

“Jump complete… they’re covered in boarders.”

“If that big one latches on they won’t be able to jump out.”

Rylee was still getting used to having a partner in the back seat, but right now she was glad that Lieutenant Semenza was there. So much was going on in the battle space that she would have hated to try and fly, gun and play the music all at once.

“Copy that. Edda wing, clear out the little ones. Only those within one click of Myrmidon."

“Wilco, Odyssey. Edda wing, weapons tight, sweep and clear. Til Valhal!"

"OORAH!"

“Odyssey wing, Firebird actual. Let’s fuck up the big one."

She grinned along with the relish in Semenza’s voice. “Copy that. Arming a bruiser."

Rylee came about and canopy-rolled around and underneath a smashed Hunter ship at twelve Gs, comfortable and grinning as Firebird automatically shunted some of its ample energy reserves into the warp engine’s inertial compensation system to protect them from the punishing acceleration. A snow of frozen atmosphere, metal debris and bits of cooling meat hissed off the forcefields, but the maneuver ended with them lined up on the biggest ship, which was advancing on Myrmidon despite the efforts of her last functioning Skymaster to hold it at bay.

The maneuver had been practiced thousands of times in the simulator. Now it was time to test if the programmers had got it right.

“Shieldbreaking.”

She felt the familiar shove in the back as the GAU-8/S howled beneath her, violently decelerating her ship. She heard Semenza counting under his breath.

“…mississippi, two mississippi… Odyssey One, fox three." he announced.

Firebird lurched as the missile disengaged and tore away from them, and Rylee peeled out of the attack run.

Three clicks away, a cloud of 30mm rounds smacked into the Hunter ship’s shields, overwhelming them in a second. While a few penetrated, the ship was so large that the damage would be cosmetic at first. But their objective was complete.

Half a second behind them, travelling much too fast for the eye to follow and still accelerating hard, the Bruiser anti-ship missile struck its target amidships.

"Good kill!" somebody yelled. The celebration was not premature - the Hunter ship had been broken in half, and both those halves were on fire and disintegrating, as dead as dead could get.

There was a broadcast in the clear. "Allied units, Myrmidon is above the red line. Much appreciated."

The besieged ship vanished. An instant later, so did Caledonia.

Seconds behind them, so too did Edda and Odyssey wings.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w AV

"Sanctuary", landed on Planet Ikbrzk

Allison Buehler

“…Oh."

“Shit.”

“Quite.”

“So the Igraens were… wild, vicious, cannibal murder machines before they uploaded themselves?”

“Oh, no. No, not at all. But they were already a highly advanced civilization at the apex of their power, just before the fall. One with the capacity to treat a being’s sense of self, their… how best to put this…"

“Their soul?” Allison suggested.

“Let us call it their Subjective Continuity of Experience. Which they were able to treat as data, to be transferred from device to device."

“And deleted from the original? That sounds like you’d effectively suicide every time you moved on.” Allison mused.

“The Igraens did not seem to care for such philosophical vacillation.” Vedreg’s tone suggested that he shared this dismissive attitude. “But in the centuries immediately prior to their… technological apotheosis, they set about exploiting their newfound liberation by creating a variety of custom-built bodies suitable for different environments and work. One of which was a bio- mechanical caste of soldier forms they developed specifically for going to war against the V’Straki.”

“The Hunters.”

“Yes.”

“…I take it they won.”

“Oh yes. But only barely. The V’straki were a tenacious foe, masters of weaponized forms of radiation, and the subject of some considerable fascination - they are one of the more interesting and noteworthy species recorded in the archives.”

“Why?” Kirk asked.

“Because, old friend, they were the only spacefaring species other than… well.” Vedreg indicated Allison and the sleeping Julian “-ever recorded as having evolved on a class twelve planet.”

He sighed. “And so the Igraens destroyed them. They cloaked some asteroids, set them to collide with the V’Straki homeworld, and mopped up the few survivors. And therein lies the first happenstance - there is an alternative interpretation for the motive behind quarantining Earth, quite aside from one herd animal’s panic - you are Deathworlders, and the Igraens will want you dead. Containing you is the first step in your destruction.”

“What, by setting up an impenetrable forcefield?” Allison scoffed. “Doesn’t that kind of stop them from throwing rocks at us?"

“It would… if your home system did not already contain an ample supply of suitable ‘rocks’ orbiting well inside the shield boundary. And if that fails, they have other options lined up.”

Julian shifted on his cot, turned over slightly, and looked straight at Vedreg. Even Allison jumped - none of them had even suspected he was awake.

“How do you know that?" he asked.

The huge alien hesitated. “….I, ah. Well. It stands to reason. Nothing that old or capable of wiping out one class twelve species is going to fail to have contingency plans.”

“Bullshit.” Julian sat up, wincing at the mismatch between the reduced physical state of his leg, and his kinesthetic sense telling him that his foot was now below the floor. “You said these archives are Yottabyes large. You said that even the best search algorithms take decades to produce the goods. You’ve had… what, a year? Since your friend died?"

“How do you know that?" Vedreg countered.

“I watch the news. The death of the Guvnurag secretary of security from an unexpected brain haemorrhage made quite the headline. Don’t try and deflect me. There’s no way you could know even half of this stuff, without it being common knowledge.”

“How do you know it isn’t?”

“Because Kirk’s been listening to you and asking questions.” Julian pointed out. Kirk inclined his head, seeing the logic. “If Kirk doesn’t know it, then it’s not common knowledge.”

“I… ah.”

“If this ‘Hierarchy’ has worked for so long to keep their implant… civilization, thing, whatever, a secret and are competent enough to do all this stuff, then there’s no way you figured it all out on your own in just one year." He paused. “No offense. You’re smart, Vedreg, but nobody’s that smart."

Vedreg sat with colours swarming on his flanks like a psychedelic ’60s TV show special effect, as they all stared at him, waiting for an explanation. Finally, he settled down into one solid colour - the magnolia glow of resolve.

Vedreg took a deep breath and spoke. “He called himself… ‘Six’.”

Chapter 21
Chapter 18: “Baggage” | Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

~7,200 y BV

He hadn’t earned his name yet. Not his adult one. His test of manhood was still ahead of him, and so the men called him “little runner”.

Not so little any more, though. Every time the great heat rose, he seemed to himself to be that little bit taller, that little bit stronger, that little bit faster.

And he dreamed of being the one to run down the meat. To be named for providing a feast for his people.

And so he ran. The more he ran, the easier running became, the further he could go. He knew that if he needed to, he could run from darkness to darkness, but you only did that if you have to. And you certainly didn’t run through the worst of the high day’s heat.

Even men had their limits. Boys, even more so. No water skin could hold enough to keep cool during the fiercest of the great heat’s glare. Even sitting in the cool and waving away the flies could leave men and wives feeling sick on the worst days.

Which was why, when he heard the voices, his first response was to stop, step into the shelter of a fat man tree, and spend a little water cooling his head. He didn’t feel strange in the way that usually preceded the heat-sickness, but to hear voices when he had run for most of the morning? He was not near his village, and not stupid enough to stray onto the land of any other tribe. At best they would have beaten him before sending him home. At worst, only his head would have been sent back to his mother. He didn’t run towards the sunset for that reason.

The voices did not speak words he knew. There were two of them, quite clear, not fuzzy and strange like dream-voices. He could glean nothing from their words, but he could hear something in them, the sounds made when a man and his wife squabbled. The word “cadence” would have been appropriate, had he known it.

Now confident that his head was cool and clear, and that the arguers did not know of him, his thoughts turned to knowledge. Who were these voices? Where were they? Why were they on his tribe’s land?

The unknown was dangerous. He stepped closer, caressing the ground with his feet as the old men had shown him. The voices continued to bicker, oblivious to his approach.

What he saw when he peeked around the fat man tree very nearly sent him fleeing for the village, crying his alarm like a startled bird.

They did not touch the ground.

There were two of them, in the air like a fly but as large as Little Runner himself. Their skins shone like the sun on wet rock, or maybe like mirage. Bright and strange, beyond his understanding. It was the first time any of his tribe had ever seen metal.

Whatever these things were - gods or demons or something else - they scared him, and so he retreated, as stealthy as before… until his spear rattled on a branch.

The impossible flying wet-rock beasts turned, and green eyes glared at him. Both raised up into the air and began to move closer, chattering excitedly at one another.

He had two options. Flee, or fight.

He fought.

Some minutes later, after the surprise had worn off, he gingerly approached the fallen wet-rock beast and prodded it. His thrown spear had penetrated its eye, killing it at once. The other had vanished like a spark coiling up to the night and its stars.

When his prod elicited no response, he gripped his spear and pulled. It came away with a crunch and a horrible noise, and light flashed inside the dead beast’s eye.

Some minutes later, he found the courage to approach again, and prodded it with his spear, achieving nothing.

He tried to lift his prey - it was heavy, but he managed it. Though, it was a morning’s good run back to the village. Carrying this strange, meatless carcass the whole way would be a challenge.

He knew exactly where he was of course. Coming back with the men to show them this thing he had slain would be easy. But the other one had simply gone like spilled water soaking into the thirsty earth. This dead one might do something similar while he was away. Or perhaps its vanished companion would return and take it.

A trophy was called for. Gingerly, he reached for the broken green eye.

He made a startled sound of pain and sucked at his finger, sliced open as easily as would be done by even the best of the stone-former’s spearheads. Even dead, this thing was clearly dangerous. But a dead eye that could cut like that would be the perfect trophy.

It took some trial and error, but eventually he managed to smash out all of the strange, rock-like material of the eye to carry home in his back. A bit of force and grunting broke off one of the beast’s lower legs, made of that strange wet-rock. Any more would only tire him on the run home.

The old men would know about these things, he knew.

When he had finally gone, the cloaked Corti field drone finally became visible again, and inspected the body of its destroyed counterpart.

“A sharp stick, right through the optical sensor and into the primary processor.” Ngilt commented. “I don’t know whether to be impressed or offended.”

“Tool use, curiosity, obvious attempts to think about the situation… Oh dear.” Trifflo added. “Oh very dear."?

“You can’t be suggesting that thing was sapient?”

“You may not have got a clear view of it through your damaged drone, partner, but I did. It was wearing clothes. It was carrying tools. If that thing was a mere nonsapient animal then I’m a Dizi rat."

“But this is a class twelve!”

Trifflo sneered across the laboratory at his counterpart. “The impossibility of sapient life on deathworlds was only ever a hypothesis.” he remarked. “and any hypothesis which contradicts reality…”

“…Is wrong.” Ngilt finished for him. “Still. The damage to our careers if we start claiming to have found an intelligent - albeit primitive - deathworlder?”

“Ghastly.” Trifflo agreed. “To be shared only among our most trusted contacts. If the Directorate heard us saying such things, we’d both be stuck on frontier survey ships indefinitely.”

“Yes. Best to keep it a secret. It won’t be secret forever, but at least our own advancement won’t be adversely affected.”

“Mark this world as unusable and move on?”

“Oh, yes. Different star system, I think.”

“I quite agree.”

That conversation, all by itself, saved the human race from extinction.

Seven thousand years later

HMS Myrmidon , Cimbrean system, The Far Reaches

It would have surprised Lance-Corporal Rob Garland to learn that he was, very distantly indeed, a direct male-line descendant of the first human ever to encounter alien life.

Given the situation, however, he would not have been thinking about it, even if there had been any way for him to know.

The hull screamed. It was exactly the right word - a kind of high, singing noise of pain that sounded like it belonged to the mouth of something alive, rather than to steel and ceramic.

“There! Pull back!”

Royal Marines were a well-drilled and professional fighting unit among the very best Earth had to offer. The order was damn near redundant, but Garland was glad for it anyway. By twos, the team moved away from the offending bulkhead, which was starting to shake alarmingly as Hunter boarding craft violated Myrmidon. The Hunters would almost certainly open with a volley of nervejam grenades, and they did not want to be caught in that.

The ship was in serious trouble, and everyone knew it, but all that meant to a marine was that you fought harder.

He heard Sergeant Vickery report the breach, calm and level. “Contact D deck forward.” In a movie, he would have yelled it, but this was real life. In real life, you stayed ice-cold, reported the facts, stayed on target.

The other team further down Myrmidon’s length reported contact of their own. He noted the fact, sticking a mental pin in his imaginary map of the ship, another contact in front of them. None flanking them, yet.

The bulkhead gave, devoured by a hungry whirl of grinding devices that chewed it away from the outside. The maw thus revealed vomited out, as predicted, a spread of little white coins, and ever man diverted their eyes. Even so, the exotic energies of Nervejam stung, like a really hard sneeze, but their fighting efficiency wasn’t impaired at all, which was why when the Hunters charged from their assault craft, they weren’t met with a carpet of convulsing and dying men, but with a disciplined volley of shotgun fire.

Shipboard combat was close quarters, and the vacuum outside was death. Weaponry that could pierce the hull was absolutely verboten, but 12 gauge flechette rounds were absolutely ideal - hardly any risk of hull penetration, very little ricochet, damn near impossible to miss, and the sheer volume of projectiles overwhelmed alien combat shielding, leaving the bare flesh to be ripped and ruined.

The first wave of Hunters barely managed to get a shot off. The one that did fired some kind of sizzling short spear that jammed quivering in the metal bulkhead behind Garland’s ear, having missed him only because of adrenaline- heightened reflexes and luck.

“Jimmy! Get a grenade in there!” Vickery ordered. Rob pulled back into cover to thumb some more shells into his magazine - he wouldn’t be able to fire while Corporal David James was up in front.

Jimmy had the best throwing arm in the squad, and it sent an antipersonnel grenade thumping and skittering up the Hunters’ ramp an instant before another one of those spears caught him right in the middle of his Osprey’s chest plate, smashing him back.

He was dragged to cover in a second as the grenade went off, but it had no apparent effect on these Hunters. These ones were more machine than flesh, covered in equipment and their forcefields were visible as a turquoise iridescence in the gunsmoke haze. They pounced and danced on mechanical feet that never stopped moving, buying them speed and agility even in the narrow confines of the ship. One of them actually sidestepped onto the wall and then along the ceiling, cradling a heavy weapon in its two “natural” limbs while a pair of some kind of light projectile weapon whined at the ends of two artificial arachnoid appendages that grew out of his back and over its shoulders.

Doing so it exposed it, and the human firepower smashed its shielding, and the creature itself a second later, but not before one of the little crescent shuriken projectiles from those guns nicked Garland’s leg, drawing blood. He hissed, but ignored it.

A second of the larger Hunters was knocked staggering by another grenade, and was dismembered by the gunshots, but the third one leapt over its fallen comrade, scuttled inverted along the ceiling for three paces, dropped as the shotgun rounds converged, rolled, came up, and fired the big gun that it was carrying in its organic arms.

Sergeant Vickery died instantly as a wad of high-pressure incandescent copper plasma struck him center-mass, flinging his burning corpse down the deck with a horrific charred cavity where his chest had been, setting the fire alarms wailing and immediately leaving squad leadership in Rob Garland’s hands.

There were four more of the enhanced ones behind the one that had just killed the sergeant, even as it was finally cut down. The marines ducked for cover as those Hunters fired their own volleys of lethal plasma, which scored and ruined _Myrmidon’_s bulkheads and left the steel running like candle wax. And behind them, a small horde of the “basic” hunters was taking its time down the ramp, content to let the heavies do all the work.

There was no second volley, though, and Rob could see that their weapons were glowing like a forge. He guessed that they had just long enough while those guns cooled down to try something insane.

“Knives out! CHARGE!!”

He felt the ship shift and the curious dropping sensation that always accompanied a displacement as his team leapt from cover.

The move caught the Hunters completely off-guard, and they recoiled from the assault, spraying their shard-throwers uselessly into the ceiling as they flinched, and went down in a dog-pile as the marines crashed into them, plunging their F-S fighting-knives into eyes, throats and anywhere that looked vital.

The lesser Hunters in the rear, armed only with pulse guns against a team of determined professional killers in full Osprey armour, didn’t stand a prayer. Marine Atwell checked their boarding vessel.

“Ship’s empty!” he called

Garland nodded and took stock. Corporal James was alive and being tended by the medics, but too wounded to keep fighting, and he could still hear shooting from amidships. Most of the lads had injuries of some kind, mostly burns from the close heat of the plasma guns, but nothing to slow them down.

“D-deck forward clear, one man down. Moving to clear D-deck mid.” He reported. “Come on, lads.”

A minute later, when his men crashed into the flank of the Hunters laying siege to the stairwell which led straight to the CIC, theirs was the last kill of the failed Hunter boarding action on HMS Myrmidon.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 1d AV

The Grand Conclave, Hunter Space

The Alpha of Alphas

<Due respect> +The sensor records as requested, Greatest.+

From the perspective of the Alpha-of-Alphas, assimilating the data and analysing it was a sensation not dissimilar to popping a morsel of flesh into its mouth and investigating the unique flavours. That sensation was no accident, having been deliberately engineered into the firmware of its own personal and highly customized suite of cybernetics.

Its lofty position granted it the luxury of being an epicure, in many different respects. Meat, obviously, was the visible focus of its gourmand appetites, but it had not become Alpha-of-Alphas only by eating meat. The position had been won ultimately by the fruits of its other, more urgent hunger: a thirst for insight and knowledge that would remain unquenched even if the Alpha-of-Alphas spent the rest of its days figuratively drowning in data.

These particular data were full of tender mysteries, which it peeled apart, turning the juicy enigmas over in its mind and slowly stripping them down layer by succulent layer, savouring the exquisite spices of elucidation as they blossomed in its mind.

There was much that could not be determined. The feast of information was tainted, riddled with sour gaps in the logs brought on by exotic manipulations of the electromagnetic spectrum which had dazzled and confuse the swarm’s sensors. The early records of the fight were meager fare indeed, barely an aperitif - it was only when the Swarm-craft began to arrive in earnest and overload the beleaguered human craft’s resources that the information began to become coherent, and that state only lasted a few seconds before the wave of smaller Human ships had arrived, reversing the flow of not only the physical battle, but also the digital one.

What could be gleaned, however, thoroughly impressed it. Chemical-propellant weaponry using warp fields to overcome the problem of their relatively glacial velocity across the huge distances involved in space combat. The precision timing of bringing a Brood-Transport’s ship down with a storm of weak firepower an instant before a hurtling kinetic missile ended the ship and the lives of every one of the two-hundred strong Ripping-Brood.

The tactics were exceptional. These humans understood the Hunt in a way that even Hunters themselves sometimes failed to. Information was controlled, traps laid, escapes predicted and retaliations, evaded. The opening ambush was simply masterful, reminding the Alpha-of-Alphas of the overwhelming strike from hiding that had won the victory against the Vulza atop whose chemically treated and preserved skull the Alpha-of-Alphas now sat.

It took note of the data from inside the wounded human vessel, sent back from the doomed broods that had assaulted it. There was little that could be done about the Deathworlder firearms - so much kinetic ammunition filling the air would overwhelm anything less than starship shielding, but the information as to which tactics had been effective and which had not was invaluable.

The fusion-tipped spear throwers clearly were inadequate. Too similar to human ballistic armour, they would wound, but not kill, and a live Deathworlder was still unacceptably dangerous. The rapid-fire shuriken guns had not scored a single kill. Only the plasma weaponry seemed to be reliably dangerous to them, but it ruined the meat and was slow to cool down between shots. Hardly surprising, considering that the weapons were designed to destroy heavy ground vehicles.

Nervejam was clearly their greatest fear, but it was equally dangerous to the Hunters themselves. Worse, in some ways - feeling the agony of one of the Brood caught in a Nervejam could stun the survivors for a few fatal seconds. It was reluctant to order more widespread deployment of the grenade launchers.

Though it stuck in the craw, the only sensible solution seemed to be to try and develop an analog of the Deathworlders’ own weaponry. If they had built it to kill one another, then it would presumably be effective.

Some questions remained. The human ship had plainly lost power at some point, and yet had still kept firing before jumping out. This raised an interesting conundrum about the nature of its internal systems.

One mystery above all, however, was truly fascinating. The human vessels had danced across the combat volume, blinking from place to place the moment they came under fire. Only sheer numbers had defeated that trick, but there was nothing in the data to suggest how it was done. Only displacement wormholes could move a ship in such a way, and yet there was no sign of any corresponding beacon - the alien vessels simply jumped, without apparently having anything to guide them.

The Alpha-of-Alphas was undoubtedly among the most intelligent beings in the galaxy, but it was a very focused intelligence - within its own intellectual demesnes, nothing in the galaxy was its equal. Outside of them, however…

<resignation; distaste> +Bring me the Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds+ it commanded.

<Information> +that one is far away, greatest. I will send for it at once, but it will not arrive for some (days).+ one of the subordinates sent.

<impatient tolerance> +stress upon it that I desire its presence as soon as possible. If I am kept waiting, the Brood-That-Builds will need to find a new Alpha.+

<Obedience> +It shall be as the Alpha-of-Alphas commands.+

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 1d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Rylee Jackson

“Did you see the muscles on that one?"

Rylee laughed. She sure had, and as she watched Sergeant Jones - “Legsy” - spin a tall tale to a laughing audience about how Corporal Murray had hurt his hand, the mental image flashed into her head of herself, wrapped around his waist and gasping.

She shook it away. Jones was a non-com vastly junior to her in rank and from a coalition unit. She’d be risking a ruined reputation and a seriously truncated career, and that was the best case scenario. Jones’ CO, Powell, struck her as the kind of by-the-book hardass who’d have her wings thrown in the fire if he found out, fame be damned. Jones, meanwhile, would be risking prison. While the rationale behind those regulations had never really convinced her, she wasn’t about to start ignoring them.

Not worth it, she decided. She was just processing the hormonal residue of an intense and dangerous combat operation, but there were options for working that out without violating regulations, even if she was especially fond of big, muscular comedians.

Folctha colony had thrown a big party for the newcomers from the freighter and all of the military personnel who’d been able to get leave, which included Rylee. Most of the colony was there, enjoying what was actually some very old- fashioned fun. A big fire, a pig roast - or some local Cimbrean equivalent of a pig, anyway - lots of beer, some instruments, singing and dancing…

And sex. That much was obvious, there was going to be a fair bit of that tonight. She was damned if she was going to miss out.

To fight the temptation posed by Jones, she hauled herself to her feet, excused herself, and made a slow bee-line for the kegs of local brew, paying attention to the locals.

Folctha had attracted a certain sort of person, she noticed. They were mostly young or in their early forties at the oldest. There was a certain… liberalness. It wasn’t anything explicit, and it wasn’t universal, but there was definitely the sense that the people here really did have the adventurous mindset and open-minded attitude which might drive them to leave Earth in pursuit of an uncertain future on an alien world. Some of that cavalier attitude manifested itself in the way they dressed, stood and spoke.

She found what she was looking for flipping burgers on one of the charcoal barbeques - six and a half feet tall, middle-length blond hair and a bit of a well-groomed beard. Beefy, strong-looking, and covered in tattoos. If he hadn’t been wearing a ring on his left hand to match the girl with the pierced lip and partly-shaved, braided brown hair who was sitting next to him watching the grill’s fire glowing on his muscles, he would have been perfect.

Still. Rylee wasn’t afraid to strike out and who knew? If she was very lucky, maybe those rings would just turn out to be the icing on the cake.

Who dared, won.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Starship Sanctuary , deep space, the Frontier Worlds

Krrkktnkk “Kirk” A’ktnnzzik’tk

“Here we go again…”

Kirk looked around. Amir had taken to piloting Sanctuary with remarkable skill, which he attributed to video games and hanging out with “the boy racers” whatever they were. The cockpit, designed for Kirk’s proportions, sometimes gave him trouble in reaching a few of the ancillary controls, but the ship’s control systems were designed to be used by anything, and intuitively. He was shaping up to be an excellent pilot.

Unfortunately, when it came to interstellar travel, piloting consisted of just sitting in the seat and watching the stars go by, staying in the chair only in case of gravity spikes - which Sanctuary’s Directorate-made blackbox drive ignored - or sudden unexpected masses directly in the line of travel, which were statistically the closest thing to being an impossibility, and in any case the computer navigated around long before any organic pilot needed to become involved.

Human science fiction had long imagined exciting and dramatic FTL travel full of rushing sparks of light, or maybe a tunnel of somewhere else. The reality was much less visually impressive: The stars moved, slowly. That was it.

Sanctuary was incomprehensibly fast, with a cruising speed of nearly five hundred kilolights. Only the human TS-2 could match her speeds of fifty light years per hour or more, and only for an extraordinarily brief sprint. Even at her velocious pace, though, the movement of the stars was slow enough to swiftly become boring.

In an emergency, if they wanted to risk a few burned out systems, Kirk reckoned that a million lights was within his “yacht”’s grasp, though there was no conceivable reason why they would need to travel so fast.

The result was tedium, and the ship’s occupants had to spend most of their time finding ways to entertain themselves. For Kirk, that was trawling through the vast archived tracts of the Terran Internet that he’d collected, studying humanity in all its fascinating detail. He’d just encountered something called “League of Legends” and while figuring out the basics of this electronic sport had been trivial, it was clear that the players were operating several meta- levels above his own current understanding.

Lewis, manning the ship’s sensors, seemed to be quite content to giggle at footage of gricka - cats - all day, though he’d once tried to engage Kirk by playing an album called “Dark Side of the Moon” alongside a movie called “The Wizard of Oz”. Kirk had readily agreed that both were fascinating artistic experiences by themselves, though he wasn’t at all clear what additional stimulus Lewis was getting out of playing them simultaneously.

Amir, for his part, rarely shared whatever it was he watched or listened to. Now, seeing Kirk and Lewis turn towards him with questioning expressions, he turned his monitor to show them.

“Julian and Allison again.” he explained.

“Oh, shit.” Lewis laughed, scooting over for a better view. “Hey, we got any popcorn?”

“What is ‘pop corn’ please?” Vedreg asked, a cautious tendril of light green curiosity infiltrating up his expression bands.

“Light snack, traditionally consumed when about to watch something interesting.” Kirk said. “What are they doing, Amir?”

The englishman sighed. “She’s turned a training session into an excuse to tease him again.” he said.

Kirk inspected the monitor, and sighed.

Building Julian a prosthetic foot had been trivial: Sanctuary’s workshop was outfitted in the cutting edge of nanofabrication tools, and a medical bay just pseudo-intelligent enough to perform the surgery itself, under careful supervision.

The hardest part, in fact, had been designing it so as to minimize his rehabilitation time. Tactile and kinesthetic feedback sensors had been crucial, as had matching the weight, the angles of motion, even the way that a human foot naturally spread out and contracted as the weight of the body shifted around. They had spent the whole morning just fine-tuning those functions, dismantling and reassembling dozens of trivially different designs until finally Julian was able to mount one onto the cuff at the end of his truncated leg and immediately say “Yeah. That feels like a real foot.”

Just to make sure he was properly acclimatized however, Allison had insisted that he should do some Yoga with her.

Now, it looked like she had an ulterior motive. Kirk’s nostrils narrowed, a direct equivalent to the human frown. He hauled himself out of his seat, squeezed past Vedreg, and trotted off towards the gym. This had gone on long enough.

Sure enough, he met Julian in the corridor, stumping back toward his bunk with a furious expression, though Kirk was pleased to note that his gait seemed entirely normal and comfortable on his new prosthetic.

“I’ll talk to her” he promised, as Julian stopped and gave him an exasperated shrug.

“Do. I’m getting sick of this shit.”

In the gym, Allison was cooling down with some stretches and gentler, easier Yoga poses as he entered. “Back already Etsicitty?” she asked. “I figured you’d… oh. Hey, Kirk.”

Kirk gave her his best glare as he entered, hearing the gravity plates automatically adjust around him to keep him safe.

“I cannot have this, Allison.” he informed her. “We are on a mission here, I need both your minds on the job, and right now you are the problem. You have gone from genuine concern for him to taunting him overnight, now that he is mending."

There was a long pause. Finally, Allison’s shoulders dropped, and she uncoiled from her cross-legged position on the floor, stood and turned to face him.

“Okay, I hear ya,” she said slowly. “but, Kirk, I’ma let you in on a secret. Julian is fucking hot." She looked up at the ceiling. “like, oh my god, the things I’d do to that man…" she spaced out for a second, lower lip caught between her teeth.

“…And?” Kirk had no idea where she was going with this. She snapped back to reality.

“Well, that’s the problem.”

“I really do not follow you.”

Allison sighed. “Kirk, I didn’t get back on this ship to fuck that guy.”

“Well, I guessed as much. But why did you? Most of the others left. This ship feels empty with only the four of you still on it, and I cannot remember the last time Lewis or Amir even left the ship."

“Because I’d forgotten just how shitty Earth is.” She confided, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind her ear

“Shitty?”

Allison exhaled, picking up a towel and mopping her forehead with it. “What have I got waiting for me back there?” She asked. “Serving lattes twenty hours a week and fixing bikes the other twenty? All so I can afford rent and, if I’m not too tired for it, some time down at the gun range? Busting my ass at the gym four times a week because booty means tips? I felt like a goddamn porn star the way some of the customers used to stare at me! And the blacktop warrior assholes who used to try and get me on their bikes, ugh!"

She flung her towel at the laundry basket and it seemed to personally offend her when she missed. “There’s more to life than having to put up with the same fat scarf-wearing poser every day who came in to order a fucking tall fucking caramel fucking zero-fat fucking frappucino in a venti cup! I swear that greasy asshole only ordered it because I had to dig through three fridges to make it all so he could stare at my ass while I was bending over! And he was just one of, like, ten! ten fucksticks just like him! For minimum goddamn piece of shit fucking wage!"

Kirk had instinctively retreated to the opposite side of the room, propelled by an instinct shared both by herbivores facing a raging predator, and men facing a raging woman.

Somehow, she was worse when she suddenly got quiet. “There’s more to life.” she repeated. “There’s… making a difference, like we are here. There’s being more than just somebody else’s wage-slave piece of eye candy. Like… if I’m gonna be sexy, I just… I want it to be on my terms. You know?"

She took a deep, cleansing breath, and picked up the towel. “Julian’s a really nice guy, but he puts me off balance. I know I shouldn’t tease him like I do but… I mean, it puts me back in control.” Kirk watched her as she opened the laundry basket and dropped the towel into it. “I’m sorry.”

“Apologize to him. He is the one you are making uncomfortable.”

“I know, I know… I just…” she tidied some stray hair out of her face. “We’d get along great, I think. And a big part of me wants that. I kinda feel like I have to put a wall there, y’know? Keep him at a distance."

“Would it really be so bad if you gave in?” Kirk asked.

“Yeah. I’d be risking this. I’d be risking mattering, don’t you see?"

“Risking?”

“Oh come on! Sex Equals Babies! I don’t CARE how careful you are, all the pills and condoms in the world aren’t perfectly safe!"

“The odds…”

“ANY odds is odds I’m not willing to take.” Allison snapped. “I will not risk a lifetime of obscurity as some hard-working nobody back on Earth versus this, no matter how good the odds."

“I… think I understand. I do not think I approve, but I at least understand where you are coming from.”

Allison gave him a tired smile. “Thanks. I’m not sure I do myself, but… thanks.”

“Just… try to dial it back at least. You two work well together. I would like you to keep working well together, yes?"

“…Yeah. I’ll try.”

She turned towards the door towards the quarters and was halfway across the room before a thought seemed to strike her.

“Okay, hey.” she said, turning back. “Your turn.”

Kirk tilted his head at her. “…My turn?” he asked.

“Yeah!” She sank down cross-legged on the yoga mat. “Come on, I just got, like, all my baggage out there, and I tell you, it feels pretty good just venting to someone who’ll listen. So… I’m here for you buddy, come on." She waved an arm towards herself. “Get it off your chest.”

After she’d had time to correctly interpret his expression as incredulity, she followed up with: “…What?”

“Nobody has ever offered me something like that before.” Kirk admitted. “You are asking how I am feeling?”

“Well… yeah.” Allison agreed. “What, is that weird or something?”

“Unprecedented.”

“For real?”

“…Yes.”

“Wow. That’s… kinda depressing.”

Kirk paced around the room, pausing by one of the small windows. "My baggage." He mused.

“Yeah.”

“I… do not know if I am ready. I do not think I can put it into words, yet.”

“Oooh, dramatic.” She winced at herself, as Kirk gave her what was unmistakably a tired glare. “Sorry.”

Kirk exhaled a sigh. “I will share. In time. I think you are right that I need to,” he said. “But I need to sort it out for myself first.”

She nodded her understanding and stood again. “I’ll be here.” she promised. “and… I’ll apologise to Julian and try to, y’know… go easy on him.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 1d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, the Far Reaches

Ava Rios

“Hey, Ava!”

Ava had volunteered to help with the cooking, and was quietly growing very sick indeed of slicing the burger buns by the time that Hayley, Sara’s mom, tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hi Hayley. How’re you…” She trailed off, noticing who was standing a little ways behind Hayley, alongside her huge husband, Mark.

Fortunately, Hayley took it for a straightforward 'How’re you?’.

“Oh, we’re great. Having a great time. I was just… do you think you could do us a favour?” She asked.

“What favor?” Ava asked.

“Could you, er… could the kids sleep round your place tonight? We’re having a guest over.”

Floating in a kind of stunned emptiness as she processed the implications of that request, Ava heard her mouth say “Yeah, uh… sure! Yeah, we, uh, we can do that for you.”

“You’re the best!” Hayley exclaimed, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

She left, in the company of her husband and one of the most famous women in the world. Just before the three of them vanished into the dark, Ava could have sworn she saw the two women kiss.

She excused herself from burger-bun duty and squeezed through the crowd until she found Adam, who was hanging out with his dad.

“You won’t believe who I just saw going home with Hayley and Mark…" she began.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

Adele Park was not, in Drew’s opinion, a pretty woman. The features inherited from her Korean father contrasted a little too strangely with those of her Czech mother for that word to apply, but she used them well, combining them with her tailored suit and businesslike haircut to present the absolute picture of poised corporate refinement.

Seeing her so distressed was a new and appalling experience.

“You, of all people?!" She demanded, looking him in the eye after watching the video. Drew could swear he saw a tear there.

"No." he said firmly. "Not me. I don’t remember doing it, and more to the point, I wouldn’t do it."

Jim Riordan, the LLC’s security director, didn’t look convinced. “I’ve had this looked at by experts back on Earth.” He said, mild and unflappable as ever. “There’s no digital artefacts, no sign of any editing, nothing. According to them, this is what the cameras really saw. And you’re going to tell us it wasn’t you?"

“Cavvo wouldn’t.” Drew M piped up. He’d been the first person that Cavendish had gone to, and been trusted immediately.

“Every man has his price, Drew.” Riordan said.

“Well God Himself couldn’t afford mine!" Cavendish snapped. “Endanger one of my team? Never."

He glared at them both. “Why do you think I came to you with this? I know what it means. It means I’m getting fired and probably charged and imprisoned. But if some bastard is somehow using me to endanger my crew?! I won’t. Not by my hands."

"Using you? That’s your excuse? That’s the best you can come up with?" Adele asked, clearly reaching the end of her own patience. “What’s it going to be, Mr. Cavendish? Alien mind-control rays? Voodoo? Nanotechnology in the coffee machine?”

Drew met her fierce gaze with a quiet firmness of his own. “Nothing short of that would cause me to harm one of my crew, Adele. And if I have to go to prison to rob whoever’s doing this of their puppet? I bloody well will.”

Nobody seemed to quite know how to react to that, and Drew was still glaring at each of them in turn when there was a knock on the door. It turned out to be one of Riordan’s security staff.

“Boss? Miss Park? I’ve got one of the Mitsubishi guys here, Heikichi Togo? He says he wants to confess to sabotaging the base.”

“He… what?” Riordan frowned at his man, caught off-guard.

“He says he’s got CCTV footage proving it was him…”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Gyotin

The shortest route from the ET Quarter to the Faith Center passed along the road outside Folctha’s school, which placed Gyotin in a unique position to be the first Gaoian to witness a schoolyard fight.

He retreated as the door slammed open and expelled one of the young colonists

• the skinny female who always carried a camera - into the street. She narrowly missed barging him aside as she ran across the road and out of sight, face a bright red and water streaming from her eyes.

Gyotin was still puzzling over this extraordinary sight when the door exploded open again and two young human males came spinning through, grappling with each other. They were doing more in the way of pulling at each others’ clothing and shouting than actually hurting each other, but the physicality of it was still alarming.

The larger one - and the darker, with a skin tone similar to that of the girl Ava he had spoken to the day before - pulled back from the fight long enough to lash out with one fist, and Gyotin issued a frightened alarm-chirrup. The blow cracked into the other boy’s face with all that trademark deathworlder force, leaving the Gaoian briefly convinced he had just witnessed a murder.

But of course, humans were made of impossibly sturdy stuff, and the struck boy just got angrier, and charged into the larger boy’s torso, shoulders-first, carrying him halfway across the street before they wound up clawing, wrestling and hair-pulling in the middle of the road.

Cubs and clan-brothers fought too of course. Gyotin himself had been part of a vicious spat when he was little that had left him with a scar on his tail and the other cub with a chunk missing from his ear. But this didn’t look like a scuffle between Gaoian males - this was a battle, a war.

It broke up as abruptly as it had burst onto the street when - a universal constant - the adults arrived.

“ADAM MIGUEL ÁNGEL ARÉS!”

The change was immediate. The bigger kid staggered upright, muttering "ohshit."

Only proximity allowed Gyotin to hear one of the female cubs - children - mutter “ooh, his full name…” to her friend.

If Gyotin was any judge by now, then from the similarities in size, skin tone and facial features, the figure limping along the road was the older boy’s sire, which was a very different relationship among humans than it was on Gao. In any case, the chastised body language of a cub about to receive a stern telling-off seemed to be practically shared between humanity and his own species, if you ignored the immobile ears.

He was surprised when the two started to converse in a language that was completely unfamiliar to him. A rapid-action one that sounded like fire and passion in the older man’s mouth.

'Of course, they don’t have a unified language, do they?' he thought. He had grown so used to everybody in the colony speaking English that even the unfamiliar terms in the books on Buddhism that had occupied him half the night had seemed like they must belong to that tongue.

He watched the incandescent exchange for a few minutes, before the two boys looked at each other. Adam held out a fist, which the other tapped with his own.

“Good enough.” the older Ares begrudged. He looked to the younger boy, whose eye was swelling and bruising badly. “Get that eye seen. Vamos."

The other boy nodded, and ran. Fled, even. Gyotin studied Adam’s body language, thinking hard. Embarrassment, chastisement and apprehension yes, but also… defiance? As if he felt he was in the right?

Finally, the older man softened. “Come here.”

They hugged.

Gyotin gave up. There were books waiting to be read, and he was eager to try this “meditation” they kept writing about. The mystery of human interrelationships would probably prove to be a deeper and more difficult one than the mystery of transcendental enlightenment.

__

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

Adele’s office was becoming crowded.

Drew felt quietly proud of himself for opening the floodgates. His example had given Heikichi the confidence to come forward. Behind him had come Ben Evans, one of the ore drone technicians. Behind him, three more. Each brought with them video proof that it was them who had performed some act of sabotage which had very nearly ended in disaster.

All stood defiantly, insisting they had no memory of doing so, and protesting their innocence. If they were anything like him, Drew knew they were all feeling used and violated.

Riordan, meanwhile, had shuttled off towards Earth in a hurry, apparently aiming to get in touch with some old contacts, leaving Adele to deal with the fact that many - and it was beginning to look like all - of her senior staff had documentary evidence of their own culpability.

There was something nagging Drew’s attention though, now that his innocence was fairly well proven. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

His train of thought missed its station and hurtled on along the track without him as Adele raised her voice to be heard over the mob that was trying to squeeze in. “Fine! Fine! No more! We’ll conduct this in a meeting room in twenty min-”

She got no further.

There was no warning. No hint that something might be amiss. Mid-sentence, pretty much everyone in the room was simultaneously floored by a bolt of the most terrible pain, right between the ears.

Drew staggered, felt Drew M grab him and try to hold him upright. As if hearing it through the worst popped ears in history, he vaguely heard. "Cavvo? Cavvo! Aww, fuckin’ hell what’s going on?"

He staggered, gripped the table, felt the pain lurch in his stomach and threaten to dislodge his breakfast, gritting his teeth against the agony that was pushing at his vocal cords, that was ripping its way out of the others as screams and moans and prayers.

And behind it all… the noise.

"Voices…" he croaked.

More than he could comprehend. Billions, trillions! All talking at once, shouting at once, thinking and moaning and laughing and singing and living at once, behind his eyes, between his ears, surging, roaring, rising into something…

Something…

He lost himself in the tide, and for a little while, Drew Cavendish ceased to exist. He slumped to the floor, as every one of those afflicted - Adele, Heikichi, Evans, everyone - likewise passed out.

Drew Martin and a handful of shocked security guards exchanged terrified glances, not knowing what to do or how to even begin figuring it out.

And then, the unconscious bodies of their friends and colleagues spoke, in perfect mechanical unison:

"ONE."

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Rylee Jackson

“Captain Jackson, may I have a minute of your time please?”

Rylee obligingly stood aside as the rest of the officers filed out of Powell’s office. When they were alone, Powell sat back and gave her a level stare.

“Far be it for me to tell you your business, Jackson,” He said, mildly “But where I’m from, an officer of your notoriety being the subject of town gossip about the way she went home with a married couple last night is called ‘bringing the service into disrepute’.”

Rylee cleared her throat. “Ah… That, uh, got around did it?”

“It’s a small town.” Powell said, drily. “Fortunately for you, it’s also a liberal one. Think most of ’em are envious rather’n scandalized.”

“May I sit down?” Rylee asked.

“Please do.”

Rylee settled into the seat, glad to reduce the formality of the discussion a bit. “So… what’s your request, Powell?”

He grimaced, clearly feeling the awkward position he found himself in. “Look… as peers, one officer to another? You do whatever you need to unwind after an op, I get it. Done it myself. I’m just askin’, again one officer to another, to think about how, fairly or not, your actions reflect on my unit. We’ve got a good informal relationship going with Folctha’s civilians, and I’d like to keep it going as long as I can.”

“That’s… fair. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cause you any problems.”

“You probably haven’t.” Powell conceded. “I just wanted to make sure it was on your radar, like. That said, speaking personally? From me to you? I’d worry about damaging your career as well. I’m a soft touch, but if someone bigger than us decided to hold it against you…”

“I think the Royal Navy might be a bit more old-fashioned about these things than the USAF, Powell.”

“True. Maybe. Still. I’d hate to watch your career stall.”

Rylee laughed slightly. “What, you think I’d become an ”old major"?" She asked, raising her fingers to make air quotes.

“Do you?”

“I think the day they say I can’t fly any more is the day I get out anyway.” Rylee said, shrugging. “That’s all I care about, really.”

“That so? That day’ll come sooner than you think, you know.”

“Yeah, but… come on, first person to fly faster than light? I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to find my way in life.”

“…Aye. Guess you’ve a right to feel secure, there.” He conceded.

“I reckon I do. But still… Thanks, Powell. It’s good to know somebody’s watching out for my career.”

“Least I can do after you pulled Myrmidon out of the fire."

“That?” Rylee grinned. “That was textbook. We’ve practiced that move so many times in the simulators, the real thing was almost disappointing.”

“Fookin’ tell me about it.” Powell agreed. “If we start going up against those Hunters regular-like, I’m going to worry about losing my edge.”

“Train hard, fight easy.”

“Aye. It was the train hard bit that got me in a bind for a bit.”

Rylee sat back and watched him, folding one leg over her knee. “How so?”

Powell looked around. “Well…” He stood, and in one easy motion, picked up his filing cabinet. Rylee jumped slightly - the cabinet was steel, and solid, and presumably full of paper. Powell was well-muscled and in superb condition, but even he should have struggled with an object of that weight.

Except, of course, that they weren’t on Earth. Her instinctive evaluation of the cabinet’s weight was probably off by a third or more.

Powell set it back down. “Back in the UK we’ve got the extraterrestrial environment training center on Salisbury Plain.” he said. “Basically just your standard enclosed training center, but with artificial gravity plating under the turf. Trained us how to move and fight in low-grav. After that Saunders bloke showed up and just built a ship out of spare parts in two weeks, I had the lads try and jury-rig some of the grav plating into the gymnasium. Took ’em a bit, but they got it going, and I tell you what: it’s done us a world of good. I just know without it, sooner or later I’d have had to go back home to recover from the muscle atrophy.”

“You sound like you don’t relish the idea of going back to Earth.” Rylee accused, gently.

Powell shrugged. “Nowt back there for me. Why would I?”

“No family?”

He laughed. “Hah! I went into the marines to get the fook away from ’em. And now this gig’s come along, all the stuff I might really have missed about Earth is right here. Now that we’ve got a proper fight on into the bargain, I’m as happy as Larry. All those months of garrison detail felt like my training were going to waste.”

“Same.” Rylee agreed. “Flying Pandora was a joy, a real privilege, but… I dunno, I felt like a weird cross between a glorified trucker and a military attache sometimes. I mean, I met some wonderful people doing it, some of whom weren’t even human, but… yesterday felt like it mattered, didn’t it? We fought back. We saved some people."

“Twenty-seven. Including a kid.” Powell said.

Rylee shook her head in wonderment. “How did twenty-seven humans even find each other out here?” she asked. “I thought our people were getting thrown overboard to keep the Swarm from visiting.”

“Eh, I don’t reckon that happens so much.” Powell said. “There’s a small flaw with the ‘throw the humans into space’ plan.”

“Which is?”

“If some fookin’ alien tried to push me out the fookin’ airlock to save his hide, I’d fight tooth and nail. Wouldn’t you?"

“Hell yeah I would!” Rylee agreed. “I see your point; so would most people. And they’re… the aliens, they’re weak as shit, seriously.” She thought back to the two embassy stations and the aliens on board. You could just feel their fragility. It had been like socializing with her grandmother’s antique porcelain dolls.

“Right. So from what they told me, the station they were on took the whole 'throw the humans overboard' thing a bit creative-like and handed the poor sods a spaceship instead of trying to murder a ‘deathworlder’."

“That’s still not exactly noble of them.” She pointed out

“Eh. Fook noble.” Powell dismissed “I’ll take whatever saves lives and stops good people from having to smear the cowardly bastards all over the walls.”

Rylee bobbled her head and was about to agree when the phone rang. Powell snatched it up.

“Powell… …they’re what?"

He stabbed the speaker button. The heavily accented voice on the other end sounded thoroughly puzzled. "It’s reet strange, sir. They’re just decloaking and warping off. Making a show of it, even."

“I’m coming over there.” Powell hung up and grabbed his sweater. “You’d better come too.” he said.

“The Hunters are leaving?" Rylee asked, springing to her feet.

“Fookin’ well looks like it.”

Rylee thought about it as she followed him out of the office. “Somehow,” she decided “that worries me…”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Ceres Base, Sol

"BRIEF US."

"Oh Jesus, oh fucking shit, what the fuck what the FUCK?"

"THIS WAS INEVITABLE. FAILURE IS ONLY A MATTER OF SUFFICIENT REPETITION."

"What do we do? Any ideas? What the hell…?"

"YOU UNDERESTIMATED THEIR RESOLVE. YOU UNDERESTIMATED THEIR SPIRIT OF COOPERATION. YOU FORGOT THAT CLASS TWELVE ALONE REMAINS THE GRAVEST CHALLENGE."

"Come on guys, snap out of it…"

"YOU WOULD DISSENT?"

"I’m trying to call the doctor but he’s not answering man, what the SHIT is going on?"

"HE IS IN VIOLATION OF THE FIRST DIRECTIVE. DELETE HIM."

"Lord, please, if you’re listening, let them be okay…?"

"IN THE GULF OF DEEP TIME, THIS INTERLUDE WILL BE FORGOTTEN. PERSEVERE."

"Just who the hell is doing this?"

"WE HAVE CONSENSUS. CARRY IT OUT."

"…Christ, I think it’s over. Look, they’re relaxing."

"Just like that? What the FUCK?!"

"Yeah, look. They’re coming round…"

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Adam Ares

“So what was that about anyway, Amigo? I’ve never seen you haul off on somebody like that."

Adam sighed. “I guess… I dunno. He was really picking on Sara about… what happened last night. Calling her a “dyke”, that kinda thing.”

“So you hit him?”

“Not at first. Sara was pretty upset, she told him to stop, that it was okay for women to like women, and Jamie…”

“I think I can guess.”

“He said 'Ooh, no wonder you want Ava to go swimming!’"

“And then you hit him?”

“And then Sara ran away. And he started this stupid goddamn chant, like, 'Sara’s lezzie for Ava’."

“And then you hit him.”

“…And then I hit him.”

They walked in silence for a moment. Adam cleared his throat. “Did I screw up?”

"Amigo, I’d have hit him WAY sooner."

Adam laughed, but sobered.

“Do you think he was right?” He asked, suddenly.

“About… what, about Sara? I doubt it, man.”

“It really seemed to hit a nerve.”

“Yeah, but the whole town’s been talking about her parents this morning.” Gabriel said. “At fourteen, that’s gotta be tough. I mean, what if… uh, what if some movie star showed up and the next morning everyone was talking about how I had gay sex with him?”

“Urgh.” Adam cringed at the thought, before he was able to properly process it.

Gabriel laughed. “Exactly.”

He put his arm around his son. “I wanna say ‘good for you’, amigo, but… I mean, he’s two years younger than you, you’ve gotta be careful. You could have really hurt him, you know?"

“…I know. I’m sorry, Dad.”

“It’s cool. You’re only grounded for, like, one day."

“Please, not the weekend!”

Gabriel spun on him. “Yeah, what IS this I hear about you kids planning to go skinny-dipping on the weekend?"

Adam blushed. “You heard about that, huh?”

“What, you think I don’t talk to your teacher? You’re still my kid, man.”

“You’ve kinda stopped treating me like one, lately.” Adam said.

“You’re sixteen! I shouldn’t have to! Hell, I wish MY Dad had trusted me as much when I was your age!"

“Well, which is it, Dad? Do you trust me, or am I still your kid?”

“Getting into fights? Going skinny-dipping with younger girls? You tell me, Amigo! ’Cause from where I’m standing those look like some pretty immature decisions."

“It’s just swimming! What’s wrong with swimming?”

“You tell me, you’re the one who’s embarrassed I found out!”

Both men paused for a second, then cooled. Gabriel was amused to note that his son’s technique of reigning in his temper by breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth was pretty much identical to his own. “I’m sorry, man. It’s tough being a dad sometimes. I just don’t want you getting gossiped about like the Tisdales.”

Adam hugged him. “I’m sorry too. Love you, Dad.”

“Love you too, man. Just… try and stay out of any more fights?”

“I’ll try.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Ceres Base, Sol

Drew Cavendish

“Cavvo? Cavvo, mate, come on, you in there?”

“Bloody… ow." everything hurt. Everything. Drew fancied he could feel every cell in his bones complaining.

“Fuck me, mate, you scared the piss outta me. You okay?”

“Tell the light to shut up…” Drew creaked, and tried to roll over. This prompted a fresh wave of pain, like the muscle pain of the flu, amplified tenfold. Drew M got his meaning, and blessed dimness descended, taking some of the hard crystalline discomfort out of the world, replacing it with a kind of woollen, soft discomfort instead, which was only a dubious improvement.

“What the flaming hell balls just happened?" Drew M. demanded.

“Fuck…” Drew told him between panting breaths “…if I know.”

“I do.”

Adele’s voice was weak, and just like everyone in the room she was plainly very badly rattled. She lolled in her high-backed leather desk chair, then reached up and undid her tie slightly. Those who could, were looking to her for an explanation.

“You…” She pointed at Drew M and the other shaken few who hadn’t succumbed. “You don’t have translators.”

Drew M looked around the room. All those who had entered to confess to their apparent acts of sabotage, all of those who had collapsed, bore the same shaven patch just forward of their temple, the site where a translation implant had been installed in them, vastly more invasive and intimate than any tattoo.

“Oh… fuck me." he said.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Owen Powell

"Nothing within five parsecs." came the confirmation, solidifying what the ground station already knew. Caledonia’s sensors were Hierarchy technology, beyond the understanding of her human operators, but so integral to the hull of the ship that removing them to be sent back to Earth for reverse- engineering had not been feasible.

They were also only very marginally better than the jury-rigged mess that Adrian Saunders had cobbled together from scrap and broken starships in a field in one afternoon, and this fact both irritated Powell and impressed him. The Australian hadn’t been heard from since his departure, and for all his obvious instabilities and recklessness, having him pass on even a fraction of his skills would have been immeasurably valuable. Powell felt that he’d dropped the ball there. The team brought in from Earth were learning fast, and improving on Saunders’ efforts as they went, but they didn’t have the experience of rebuilding a half-derelict alien starship to draw on.

“Okay.” he said. “So the question is, why?”

Captain Bathini, Caledonia’s commanding officer, had his own interpretation lined up and ready. “They’ve got something planned.” he opined.

“Any guesses as to what?” asked Jackson, getting straight to the point.

There was a pause. “Speculatively - we just gave them a hell of a bloody nose. One of their large ships taken out by Firebird, a craft a fraction of its mass. Two destroyers held out for five minutes against a large part of the swarm, destroying or crippling a further fifteen vessels, and that’s not counting all the assault craft shot down by CIWS and the one-oh-ones. Both escaped, if not unscathed then certainly alive. From what little we know of Hunter psychology, however, all that probably won’t have demoralized them - it will have frustrated them and made them angry.”

Powell nodded. “You reckon they’re going to try a different tack.” He said.

“I do. And on past evidence, it’s likely to be some atrocity or another. They have sought in the past to strong-arm the other species into betraying our people in the hopes of avoiding being raided.”

Captain Manning chimed in. “If I were in that situation the next step would be to make life hell for the ID and the CA until they give up on each other and unite against us. Fight us by proxy.”

“Exactly.”

“Plausible.” Powell conceded. “Is there anything we can do about it?”

“From here?” Manning thought about it. “Probably not. We have two destroyers, one Firebird and three TS-101 wings that are being phased out and replaced. That’s the sum total of our spaceborne military assets, and with the Chinese so vigorously opposed to the militarization of space…”

“That’s just China being China.” Rylee commented. “The Space Preservation Treaty was repealed, and I know the USAF wants to consolidate Odyssey, Edda and Tawhaki into a single full-size wing sooner rather than later, so that’s at least another thirty Firebirds.”

“Meanwhile, we’ve already got the Type Two Space Destroyer in the works.” Bathini said. “Three of them, to begin with.”

“What’s the Type One?” Rylee asked. Bathini just pointed skywards, indicating Caledonia and Myrmidon.

“I still say we should have bloody well called them Star Destroyers.” Powell grumbled. There was a shared chuckle. “Still… Five destroyers. Sixteen spaceplanes for now, a whole wing later on. Two retrofit Hunter dropships, three standard Dominion-designed shuttles… That’s not bad, actually.” he mused.

“One-on-one, in the short term? We’re the deadliest things in the sky.” Rylee agreed. “But we don’t have the staying power for serious warfare. Our capacitor doctrine’s both our greatest strength and our biggest weakness. In a long fight or against overwhelming numbers, we’ll lose every time."

“Okay.” Powell said. “Interesting as all that is, it doesn’t give us a clear strategy for how we respond if the Hunters try and provoke the ETs into uniting against us.”

“That one’s a little bit above our pay grade there, Owen.” Manning reminded him.

Powell sighed. “Aye, you’re right, but I was really hoping you wouldn’t fookin’ say that." he groused. “Alright, but I’d still like to have a proposal for the Admiral, even if he just chucks it in the shredder.”

“Of course. What are you thinking?”

Powell chuckled. “Guile.” he said.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Starship Sanctuary, Deep Space, The Frontier Worlds

Krrkktnkk “Kirk” A’ktnnzzik’tk

“Did I ever tell you about the Outlook on Forever?"

Allison shook her head. “I don’t think you ever told me, no. I heard the short version from Amir."

“It was… nowhere. And I was nobody. I grew up on that station, I worked there. I was a customs and immigration officer, just another component of the Dominion bureaucracy. And… that was my life. I worked, I slept, I worked. I was saving up my currency, but I had no plans for it. I think my highest aspiration was finding some slender-necked beauty and siring a couple of offspring.”

“Sounds… dull.”

“Oh, I was.”

“I meant the situation but… yeah. It’s kinda hard to picture you being so boring."

This earned her a curious look. If he was human, he would have tilted his head

• his own species’ equivalent was to settle back on all six legs, stable and secure, and get a very good look at her with both eyes - a difficult task when they faced in different directions from opposite sides of his skull. “Do you think so?” he asked.

“Three guns and a fusion sword? Dude, that was some action movie shit you pulled yesterday. Standing up to the security council, quitting it when the field went up? Visiting deathworlds, even Nightmare to retrieve us and take us home? Just… hell, this ship. This whole idea of yours. You’re not boring, no way."

Kirk nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. “Well, I used to be. And it was a human who knocked me out of the rut.”

“This Jenkins guy, right?”

“Yes.”

He turned and tapped some commands on the wall touchscreen rather than use the room’s voice interface. Allison - driven by fierce Deathworlder fight-or- flight instincts - scrambled to her feet in alarm as a Hunter materialized in the center of the Gym. She knew it was holographic, but still - the things were so creepy.

For his part, even Kirk flinched and shuddered despite having conjured the projection, but he also seemed… pleased? It was hard to tell without a cybernetic device to help her intuit his body language and expressions.

“Okay. What’s all this about?” Allison asked him, inspecting the mirage and steeling herself. The beast looked terrifying, nearly three meters of glistening flesh the colour of Hollywood teeth, shading to bleeding gumline wherever harsh black implants violated the surface. Even studying a simulation of the thing conjured up every phobia innate to the human psyche: of spiders and twisted proportions and too many teeth. Its face alone send a trickle of trypophobia down her spine.

“Death.” Kirk said, simply. “For frontier stations and ship captains this is the grim reaper, not a question of if but when. Your only hope is to die of something else first. Before they eat you. Maybe if you fight hard enough you will force them to kill you before they begin to feed, maybe if you put up enough of a resistance then they will take what they already claimed and leave, rather than push on into the core of the station where the young and pregnant are. Six Hunters in one of their raiding ships are a bloodbath, a whole brood-transport is a massacre. And those are the smaller classifications of Hunter vessel."

He paced across the room. “The Outlook was not a frontier station." he said. “It was a bustling freeport, a city. Civilization. I stayed there my entire life because I thought it was safe there. I was scared of leaving and being eaten. I would have preferred to live a lifetime in bored obscurity rather than step out of the door and face the specter of those things.”

“…and then they showed up anyway.” Allison said, guessing where he was going.

“Exactly. A little brood, probably out to prove their daring and resourcefulness. They boarded right into the heart of the customs and immigration handling center, where I worked. A fast raid, in and out before any kind of a response could mobilize.”

He shook his mane and stamped a foot. “And if not for Kevin Jenkins, I would have been a casualty of that attack. Instead, I became one of its heroes. I killed half of them.”

“So… what’s your baggage?” Allison asked.

Kirk didn’t answer for a while. When he finally did, the creaks and crackling of his language were audibly laced with emotion even for human ears.

“I… asked him to join us.” He said. “Jenkins. He was the first person I approached to be part of the Sanctuary crew after we first got some of the guys home."

“He said no.” Allison guessed.

“He said, 'I’m right where I want to be, man’."

Allison nodded, sympathetically. “I think I get it. You hero-worshiped him, and then he turned out to be… not quite what you-”

“He turned out to be an asshole.” Kirk interrupted, putting it bluntly. “I used to just think he was damaged and weary, but the more I think about it, the things he said about your species, the way he spoke about the whole universe as if it owed him something, the way he… seemed to think everything revolved around him. I didn’t know anything about your species before, all I saw in him was the answer to my greatest fear, alive and joking after being pounded half stupid by their pulse guns.”

“I saw… life! hope!” he brayed. “I saw the answer to what I didn’t know was called a ‘prayer’! I saw a dynamic being who stood and fought and won against the thing that had kept me pinned and terrified my entire life. Do you know what that feels like, to see your monsters torn apart by an ordinary weary traveler?"

Allison just sat in silence and let him rattle on.

“…and then…. 'I’m right where I want to be.’ as if it’s all about what he wants. As if there’s not a galaxy out here that needs saving from THIS!" In a surprisingly swift motion he turned, looked over his shoulder, and delivered a ferocious equine kick to the hologram which, programmed to respond realistically to damage for combat training purposes, staggered and fell, wheezing through broken ribs. “Room, end simulation.”

The holographic Hunter ceased to exist, as abruptly as a light being turned out.

“Hey, Kirk…” Allison said thoughtfully. “Kick me.”

“…what?”

“Kick me. Come on, you know I can take it.”

Kirk looked at her stupidly for a second, then mimed a human shrug - a complicated gesture given the construction of his shoulders - turned, and, with a glance to make sure she had braced herself kicked her as requested.

Allison made an "oof!" noise, staggered across the room and fell on her ass. “Christ, you kick really hard."

“A real Hunter would not have stood still long enough." Kirk dismissed, quietly noting the easy, unconscious way in which she tucked her feet underneath her and stood up.

“Still, you say you killed half of them. You stood and fought as well.”

“Please, do not give me any of that 'the real strength was in you all along’ crap," Kirk begged her. “I deduced that part for myself, I do not need a Disney moral lesson.”

“I, uh… right. Okay.”

After a few awkward moments, she repeated her earlier question. “So… what’s your baggage?”

“I… do not know, exactly.” Kirk confessed. “I think… are you religious?”

Allison shrugged. “Complicated question. I believe there’s something bigger than us, but…”

“Well, I think that, for a while, humanity was my god.”

“And you’ve lost faith?”

“No!” Kirk exclaimed “No, not that. It is more that… now you are my friends, my trusted allies. you are people to whom I look for strength, not gods to whom I look for inspiration. I still think your species will change the galaxy for the better, but I do not worship you any more."

“Yeah, we don’t deserve that.”

“If you say so. I love you, Allison.” Seeing her face going slack in surprise, he hastened to elaborate. “Your species, that is. I would not change to be one of you, but you have no idea how happy it makes me that the human race exists. You excite and scare me - you represent death too, but you represent the… the right kind of death. Being around your kind makes me feel alive rather than terrified."

Allison didn’t know how to take that. “I guess… thanks?”

Kirk stooped a little, a gesture of acknowledgment. “It is only a half-formed thought. But thank you for hearing it, Allison.”

“Feels good to vent, doesn’t it?”

“Cathartic”

There was a comfortable few minutes of quiet while the two of them thought. Finally, Kirk shook himself, and tapped the wall screen. “Anything to report, Lewis?”

Lewis had settled comfortably into his role as ship’s sensor and communications specialist, a talent he attributed to lots of online gaming. Seeing as neither he nor Amir had ever been given translation implants in the first place, they only rarely left the ship.

"Yeah, we’re, uh… we just shook hands with the Age of Opportunism, man. Just getting our mail… yeah, here we go. Looks like there’s something in the dropbox for you, dude."

“What is it?”

"Two messages. First one looks like an update from Cimbrean, man. Here ya go."

The file appeared on Kirk’s screen. “Lewis, I can’t read English.” he said, patiently.

"Ah. Yeah. Sorry, bro."

Allison was about to spring up and read it when the familiar letters and words of the document shifted and changed into the angular runes of the alien interstellar written alphabet.

“Lewis, I can’t read that either. My translator has been removed, remember?"

"Ah. Fuck. Yeah. Uh…"

Not for the first time, Allison felt a stab of doubt at Lewis’ competence. Though on the rare occasion that he focused…

She sprung up and converted the document back to English. “Okay, let’s… The Hunters have left.”

“What?”

“Yeah. According to Folctha, they just up and left. Says there was a battle over the colony, and now they’ve just… gone.”

Kirk stood very still, processing that information.

"…That’s good news, right?" Lewis asked.

Kirk appeared to reach a conclusion.

“No.” he decided. “No, I do not think it is. What is this other message?”

“It’s from Earth. Marked urgent.”

Allison went noticeably pale as she skimmed it. “holy shit, Kirk." she declared eventually. “I think we got those implants out just in time…”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Owen Powell

“Oi, kid!”

The girl turned towards him, looked around, then gestured towards herself with a questioning frown. Powell nodded, and beckoned her over. She was one of the older kids, damn near an adult in fact. Ava something, if memory served. She trotted over, moving easily in the low gravity, which suggested she kept up with her exercise. He approved.

“Do us a favour love, could you run over to the alien enclave an’ tell them we’re holding a Thing tonight that they’ll all want to attend? Ask for Gyotin, he’s the only one speaks English worth a damn.”

“I know Gyotin.” she said. “Most likely he’s round at the faith center.”

“The…” Powell strangled the impulse to casually swear. He never swore around kids. “…What’s a Gaoian doing at the faith center?” he asked instead, caught off-guard by the sudden curiosity. Aliens were notoriously secular.

“I think he’s converting to Buddhism.” Ava said. She gave a complicated teenage shrug which eloquently conveyed the sheer absurdity of the notion. “I’ll go tell him.”

“Cheers.”

“A Buddhist Gaoian.” Ross mused, as Ava jogged away.

“Gyotin of all people, too.” Powell agreed. “You ever get the impression the whole fookin’ universe is a joke?”

Ross glanced at the training field as they walked past it. Legsy was in full flow, putting the army regulars through their paces against a squad of simulated Hunters. Something about those particular ETs made his skin crawl. “Sick joke.” he muttered.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 2d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Gyotin

“Thank you all for coming.”

The Thing - and it had taken Gyotin quite a long time to figure out the difference between a Thing and a… well, a thing - was built in the palatial grounds, out of what had once been some kind of large courtyard or walled garden. The colonists had put a tarp over the roof to ward off the nightly rains and had kept some crates in there to begin with, and then had used the convenient dry space with its convenient impromptu seating as a meeting room.

Subsequent iterations had added real chairs and a more permanent roof structure - a thick plastic sheet of material that diffused the sunlight into a warm off-white glow during the day, woven with fibre-optics that induced it to glow at nighttime while it warded off the gentle nightly rains. Somebody had put a lot of effort into that roof, and it had become an artistic landmark in the heart of Folctha, visible from practically everywhere in town.

Despite those upgrades, it was still very much an informal event, with only a few rules. There was a length of Aluminium rod that was passed around, and whoever held it was the one who was currently speaking. The governor, Sir Jeremy, never ventured an opinion or motion himself, but instead kept the peace, granted the rod to would-be speakers, and confiscated it if he felt that its current holder was going on for too long.

It was a simple, makeshift system that was mostly dominated by the business of drafting a more formal constitution as the colony grew, but for now Folctha was still small enough for everybody to attend.

It still felt a little cramped when literally everybody attended, however. Doubly so given that the few dozen nonhumans who had accepted the invitation to attend were nervously keen to keep some distance between themselves and the deathworlders, who in turn were politely obliging them with a good two meters of clearance.

This time, the speaking rod was handed straight to Captain Powell. Gyotin had grown somewhat used to the intense human soldier, but even from across the room the man radiated a kind of focused aggression that made even other humans a little nervous.

“Thanks for coming.” he acknowledged, and despite his low volume, every being present shut up and listened.

“As you’re all aware, there was a battle overhead last night, which we won. We successfully rescued an incoming freighter full of refugees from the Hunter swarm, though five of the refugees were killed by Hunter boarders. A further seven Royal Navy personnel were KIA, and before we go any further I’d like for you to join me in a minute’s silence.”

The humans, practically as one, bowed their heads.

It was… eerie. Gyotin knew death well, he’d seen enough of his Brothers and fellow Gaoians killed in his life. Death was just life plus time, a fact, an inevitability. He had felt pain at the losses, of course, had keened and whimpered to see his Brothers hurt and dying, but… that was it. You mourned, you lived, you moved on, eventually you died.

Only twelve dead in the face of an entire Hunter swarm was… incredible. The humans should be whooping and cheering and celebrating. Instead, they seemed to feel those few losses almost more than they had felt the news of the death of millions back on Earth.

The silence stretched on, and while the others fidgeted, Gyotin continued to watch the deathworlders. Some simply stared off into an unfocused distance beyond the floor. Others had their eyes shut. Some were mouthing words, silently. One or two were weeping. Over a victory.

Their sense of perspective was clearly all wrong.

No signal was given that Gyotin could detect, but as one the deathworlders shook themselves out of whatever mourning trance they’d been in. They looked up, looked around, took some breaths, wiped away tears. Gyotin couldn’t shake the sense that he’d witnessed something profound and quietly intense, but utterly lacked the means to translate or understand it.

Powell cleared his throat.

“Thank you. Now. On to business.”

He stepped into the center of the room and faced the nonhuman contingent. “This morning, the swarm left. So far as we can tell, every single ship just warped out. We have no explanation at this point, but it does create an opportunity for us to honour the promise we made to our guests that we would return them to their people as soon as was practicable. Gyotin, if you could translate that for me, mate?”

Gyotin hadn’t properly processed the sentence himself, and it was only when he repeated it in Gaoian that the words clicked. He could go home! They were offering to send him and all the others back home! Back to Gao, to his clan, to females.

“When?” he asked, as soon as he’d finished, as the surprise and delight percolated through all the aliens behind him.

“Bathini?”

Powell handed the rod to another man, this one wearing a uniform of some kind. Gyotin had never seen him before.

“For those who don’t know me, I am Captain Rajesh Bathini, and I command HMS Caledonia." He introduced himself. “She has all the capacity needed to deliver the refugees and is ready to depart at any time. Given that we don’t want to leave the colony undefended should the Hunters return, our destination will be the Gaoian planet of Gorai, which is relatively nearby. We hope to make friendly contact and hand you over swiftly and with enough currency and supplies to let you travel on to wherever you wish to be. Gyotin, you’re the only Gaoian among us, so I would appreciate your insight into how best to peacefully approach the border.”

Gyotin imitated a human nod even as he translated. “I have questions.” he said, as soon as he’d relayed the captain’s words.

“By all means.”

“How do you know the Hunters are gone? This could be an ambush.”

Bathini and Powell shared a look, before the latter man shook his head and spoke up.

“I can’t go into the details for reasons of security.” he said. “I’ll only reassure you that we have very good reason to be confident that there are no Hunters at least within a few lightyears of here.”

“In any event, Caledonia will be primed and ready to jump back to Cimbrean at all times." Bathini added. “If it does turn out to be an ambush, we are entirely confident of being able to escape it. We shall not be taking unnecessary risks.” He paused to allow Gyotin to finish translating. “Any further questions?”

“Why?”

The question, coming as it did from Xktnk, the self-appointed leader of the vzk’tk population on Cimbrean, was not understood by the human, nor at first by Gyotin, who turned to look at him with an interrogatory expression.

“Ask him why.” Xktnk insisted. “Why are they doing this?”

Gyotin shrugged, and phrased the question in English. It seemed to take the humans aback.

“Why… wouldn’t we be?” the governor, Sir Jeremy Sandy, asked eventually.

“These are deathworlders. Killers and maniacs, you saw the ones who boarded our ship, Gyotin. You saw the traps one of them designed. How do we know we’re not just the bait in another trap? They’re at war with the Hunters, and now they want to bring the enemy back by putting us in harm’s way."

Gyotin paraphrased the accusations. A ripple of outraged mutterings from the gathered humans drove the aliens into a dense protective knot, glancing around nervously, but Xktnk raised his blue head and stared defiantly back, even though he was shaking.

That defiance earned him the direct attention of Owen Powell, and didn’t last long. It wasn’t that the human soldier gave him a particularly hostile look, but the man seemed to exist at a level of intensity beyond even that of other humans. Even his simple, curious, studious stare suggested that he was evaluating all of the hundreds of ways in which he might harm or kill the paranoid Vzk’tk.

It was Captain Bathini who spoke, however, recapturing the quivering Xktnk’s attention. “We’re people too, sir.” he said. “Maybe it’s different for you, but for us, to be in your situation, to be far from our homelands, our people and our families would be difficult. Deathworlders or not, we believe in treating others as we would wish to be treated. Is that so alien a concept?”

It certainly wasn’t for Gyotin.

As for Xktnk - For the rest of his life, Gyotin never figured out whether it was Powell’s withering gaze or Bathini’s warm diplomacy that shut him up. All he knew was that there were no further questions.

They were going home.

Date Point: 4y 8m 3w 4d AV

La Mesa Memorial Overlook. San Diego County, California, USA

Kevin Jenkins

“Hey, Terri.”

The memorial overlook was a testament to the devastation of the blast. Five miles from Ground Zero, and still the sheer scale still struck the visitors with just an echo of how truly immense the energy release here had been.

The once-vibrant city of San Diego was a field of broken glass, pulverised concrete, splintered wood and drywall, crushed brick, fractured asphalt and mulched plastic, with an ugly black bullseye in the middle, a mile across. Hardly anything within five miles of ground zero had been left standing, and most of the few survivors had ignited and burned down. The fires had scoured the hills and national wildlife refuge.

Ground zero itself was a bay, the bomb’s crater having intersected the shore and filled with water.

There really could be no appropriate memorial other than to just stand there and take in the devastation. It was unlikely that the city would ever be rebuilt.

The local climate had changed drastically, too. Denuded of trees and with the air full of soot and ash, a few days of rainstorms had badly eroded the hills, changing the air currents, warping the weather. It was subtle, but the air still, months later, carried fine, sharp debris that dried and irritated the skin.

For Kevin, though, nothing had been quite so personal about the death of San Diego as the total obliteration of a particular grave site. He had to resort to sitting on a hilltop, mumbling uselessly to himself. It wasn’t that he thought Terri could hear him. In fact he very much hoped she couldn’t - the idea of an afterlife, any afterlife at all, scared the crap out of him. But it helped him to talk, and his dead… friend… was at least the perfect confidante. She would never betray his secret confessions.

“No flowers, not from me. That always seemed kinda stupid to me, y’know? Saying “sorry you’re dead” by killing a plant. Yeah, let’s honour the dead by killing some more stuff, smart move there.”

He picked at a fingernail. “Kirk got in touch.” he said, finally. “Invited me to come star trekking with him. See the galaxy, do whatever. Poor bastard always did think I was the shit. Think I hurt him a bit when I said no. I’d feel bad but… he needed to grow up.”

He squinted at the sun. “I ask myself what I’m doing though, y’know? I mean, we’re out there, we’re doing this, we’re being the shot in the arm that crazy fucked-up excuse for a civilization out there needs. And I’m just sitting here serving drinks to the guys who are making it all happen, pretending like I know jack shit about what it’s like out there just because some fucking Corti took me, way back when.”

“…My daughter’s fourteen years old next week. I’ve not seen her since the day she… since like two weeks before those grey fuckers took me. I don’t know anything about her any more. That hurts. That hurts more than feeling like a phoney. It hurts more than thinking maybe I’m the asshole who made the whole galaxy afraid of us because I was too wrapped up in myself. I had to go and fucking preach.”

“What if I’d just kept my mouth shut?” he asked. “Y’know, just told them my ink was, like, decoration? Not unloaded all my baggage onto a galaxy full of stupid aliens who didn’t know shit about us? Maybe not prejudiced them all against us? Could I have done that?”

He sighed, and played with a bootlace. “Moot fucking point, huh? And that… hah, that gricka’s out the bag. Not like I can do anything about the past, right Terri?"

He sat for a while, chin on one knee, and watched the sun go down over the ruins of a city he felt, in some small way, responsible for killing.

“I don’t want to matter.” he decided. “I don’t want to be somebody important. I don’t want to be the fucking 'butterfly’. Cause all that does is… is this."

“But maybe… maybe it’s not about what I want, you know? I want to say shit like 'I’ve done enough for the human race' or whatever but…"

The sun was a flake of blaze orange on the sea by the time he spoke again, standing, stretching and blowing a kiss towards roughly where he thought Mount Hope cemetery had been.

“Thanks, Terri. It’s been good talkin’ to you… Goodbye.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 5d AV

Firebird, orbiting Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Rylee Jackson

"That’s the last one."

“Copy that Edda-Two.” Rylee allowed herself a moment of satisfaction. Deploying a series of satellites into Cimbrean’s orbit had been a tedious job, but made vastly easier by jump technology. No need for a dangerous and expensive rocket launch, the sat could go straight from the lab to orbiting an alien world in a moment. It wasn’t quite a free launch, but considering how cheap power was becoming as Earth deployed more and more solar collection fields to replace traditional power plants, it was the next best thing.

The result was that there were a LOT of them, many whipped up in universities and colleges by their doctorate students, running on raspberry Pi or reprogrammed last-generation cellphones. Between those plus the NASA, CERN and other professional offerings, there was a lot to do, and Rylee and all the other TS pilots were back to being glorified space truckers.

The deployment of CHICKSAT-1, an offering from MIT designed to use laser interferometry to map Cimbrean’s ocean floors, marked the end of the deployment operation, and thus the moment when Odyssey and Edda became available to escort Caledonia on her return voyage.

“Hey, captain?” Semenza sounded like he had something on his mind.

“What’s up, Joe?”

“Take a look at the continent below us. That’s where Folctha is on our right, yeah?”

Rylee turned to get a good look, rolling Firebird a little to help. “Yeah… hey, is that supposed to be there?”

“Glad you see it too.” Semenza commented.

Clear as day, cutting across most of the width of the continent, was a crescent line of brown.

“It’s visible from space, it must be huge.” she said. “Hey Edda-two, Firebird actual here. Can you give me eyes on ground over the Folctha subcontinent? You guys see a discoloration?"

"Stand by… yeah, some kind of brown scar, right through the forest. You reckon it’s important?"

Rylee rolled Firebird back over so that her belly was facing dirtside. “Joe, get some pictures, send them down to the colony.” she ordered.

“Wilco.”

Firebird’s heritage included spy planes, and given that such equipment took up only a tiny portion of her comparatively large airframe and mass allowance, an advanced suite of cameras and sensors had been found a place in her underbelly. “Give me, uh, ten degrees left roll.” he requested, followed by “perfect, hold it there… okay, got it. Myrmidon, Firebird two, I have recon data for groundside, LOSIR check."

The wounded destroyer was in a higher orbit, nearly half a light-second out, but there was an unobstructed line of sight between her and Firebird. On the smaller ship’s dorsal hull, barely a meter behind Joe Semenza’s head, a tiny ball rolled in its socket, exposing an infrared laser lens and matching camera to space, where they aimed themselves toward the larger vessel’s RFID. The system was only good at comparatively close ranges, but allowed for huge bandwidth data transfer.

"Copy Firebird. Establishing LOSIR connection… connection’s good, clear to send."

“Sending… sent. Forward to groundside marked for civilian science, please.”

"Data received and wilco, Firebird. Myrmidon out."

“Okay. What’s Caledonia’s ETD?" Rylee asked.

“Three-seven mikes. Cap’s at… seven-six percent.”

“Okay, coming to orbital rest. Deploy the WiTChES.”

“Aye aye.”

The WIde aTtainment CHarging Energy System always made her think that Firebird was perfectly named. The two generators for the system were mounted just forward of the thrusters and thrust out sideways. At first they were invisible, but as they stretched out to their full width and caught the solar wind, they started to glow a vivid aurora crimson, shading to orange at the edges and tips.

Happy that her baby was getting well fed and would be at maximum capacity when the time came to depart, she relaxed back in her flight seat and looked outwards towards the stars.

There was a blinking star out there, which was impossible in space, but she knew what it was, even before a quick check of the nav radar confirmed it.

It was half a Hunter ship, tumbling in its orbit where she and Semenza had killed it.

Smiling to herself, she gave the dead aliens the finger. Life, she reflected, was good.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 5d AV

The Scrapheap Sea, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Ava Rios

Ava had to admit. Her boyfriend looked good naked.

Colony policy was that exercise was mandatory. While there had been some grumbling over the authoritarian nature of that edict, it had largely faded in the face of a long and comprehensive introduction to the effects that low gravity had on the human body. A good part of their loaned finances had been spent building a large variable-gravity gymnasium fit to handle even the most aggressive population growth estimates for the next five years, staff it with trainers tasked with keeping the colony in shape, and establishing a requirement of a minimum of two hours of intensive physical training per week.

Adam took five two-hour sessions a week in the 1.1G room, plus a half-hour warmup and cooldown on either side in 1G. The result was that her skinny boyfriend was rapidly becoming her otter-fit, toned and gorgeous boyfriend.

It made the thought that she was living with him a difficult one. Ava was a “not before marriage” type in principle - she’d promised as much to her parents, and especially wasn’t about to break that promise now that they were in Heaven. But they lived together, unsupervised, and the whole colony gave the impression that they would have been surprised and a little put out to learn that she and he weren’t having sex.

As far as she was concerned, however much they’d been through together, sixteen was still too young. She didn’t care if Folctha had inherited Britain’s very… European laws in that area, it felt wrong to her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to, but…

Lots of things had felt wrong to her lately. The whole world had turned out to be wrong in so many ways that every day had become a temptation to just let go and go with it. But… here they were. The air was cool, the water was crystal clear and apparently surprisingly warm, and they had barely arrived before Sara had vanished into it in a skinny flesh-toned blur, leaving her clothes on the beach, followed equally shamelessly by her little brother and two of their school friends.

It was all so weird. Especially when Adam just met her gaze, laughed sheepishly, shrugged, and pulled his own shirt over his head. Guilty or not, she’d had to admire his body as he had shed his jeans and run into the water, laughing nervously.

She’d tried to follow them. She really had. She’d tried to let go like she’d said she would. But every time she tried to will her hands to her T-shirt or her jeans waistband, they’d clenched into fists and retreated on a tide of nausea.

It was so stupid! She knew it. She knew it, on a deep and visceral level, that the problem was all her own making, she could see right there in the water the evidence that she was being ridiculous. But still she lingered on the bank, hugging her knees and quietly going desperate and neurotic from the absurd shame that she was the only one wearing clothes.

Eventually she couldn’t take it any more. She stood up and slipped away into the woods. It was quiet back there, somewhere she could get some alone time and process her feelings.

On a whim, she plucked a shoot from a nearby bush, stuck it in her mouth and, after a moment to take note of where she was, strolled deeper into the sunlit glades and wooded halls of an alien forest.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 5d AV

HMS Caledonia, approaching the Gorai system.

Captain Rajesh Bathini

“Signal from the lead patrol vessel, captain. Translates to 'Unidentified vessel, you are approaching the sovereign territory of the Clans of Gao. You will halt before crossing the border or be met with deadly force. Comply immediately’."

Bathini nodded, the picture of calm as he settled his cup of tea back in its saucer. “All stop.”

“Aye aye. All stop!”

“All stop.” the helmsman repeated, obeying instantly.

There was no visible change in the outside view. They had already dropped from the huge apparent velocities of interstellar travel to a much slower, much noisier approach that the Gaoian military couldn’t possibly have failed to notice. The stars had not visibly been moving for nearly ten minutes now. As they dropped to a sublight velocity, the most that anybody inside Caledonia’s bridge could detect was a faint lurch.

From the outside, as the Gaoian vessels came to a halt around them, the deceleration was so much more visibly violent. It wasn’t so much that the ships arrived as that they appeared, their incomprehensible “speed” - a term that wasn’t really applicable to the way that warp drives worked, but sufficed in the absence of an alternative - only hinted at by an eyeblink’s worth of motion blur before the ships were just there, solid and drifting as if they had never been anywhere else.

He admired their tactics. While it clearly betrayed that they were ignorant of Caledonia’s blink-jump tactics, the configuration was excellent, placing all three ships in a position so that, no matter which vector Caledonia might accelerate along, a minimum of two of the Gaoian craft would have a firing solution on her, and one that made sure that no allied craft was in danger of being hit by stray fire. An unlikely event when you were talking about distances of hundreds of kilometers, but still a sensible precaution.

Odyssey and Edda had both stopped at a rendezvous point two parsecs out, and were on a hair trigger to jump in via wormhole if summoned. While Caledonia’s own systems were only on about sixty percent charge, needing only five percent to effect an immediate retreat to Cimbrean, theirs would be fully charged by now, primed and ready to fight as hard as humanly possible in the event that it became necessary.

Bathini was resolved that under no circumstances would it be necessary. The very last thing they needed now was to disgruntle a potential ally.

“Best behaviour, people. I don’t want a peep of activity out of anything that might even smell like a weapon on their sensors." he said.

“Signal from the lead ship, captain. It reads 'Identify yourselves’."

“I’ve wanted to say this for a long time.” He confided, standing up. “On screen.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 5d AV

The Scar, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Dr. Mary Cleveland

Dr. Mary Cleveland had come to Cimbrean for the simple reason that it opened up a hitherto unexplored field of science: Xenomycology. The study of alien fungi, or at least of alien life forms that were functionally very similar to fungi.

Persuading her husband Colin to join her and become the human race’s first xenobacteriologist in the field had been as simple as suggesting it.

Both of them were of course trained in the proper use of protective clothing, to isolate themselves from their samples, but she had only imagined ever to need it in the lab, to prevent contamination of the sample. Protecting herself from a potential threat had never really been considered before. This was supposed to be a Class Four planet.

That had been before they saw the “mark” up close.

What had looked like a thin brown line in the satellite photo had turned out to a comprehension-defyingly large swathe of forest. From the shuttle, it stretched horizon to horizon in one direction, and filled half the world below in the other, flanked with sickly yellows, whites and blacks. The brown was… was death.

Trees had fallen, and nothing was growing to replace them. Streams were choked with scum and froth. They circled over one abscessous hole in the forest where even the fallen trees were gone, and inside it, Mary could see the skeleton of some native beast the size of a horse, and already it looked… incomplete.

“This shuttle’s sensors are next to useless.” the pilot reported. “but it’s good for atmospheric composition. Have a look at this..”

The scientists crowded round, leaving poor Mary stuck in the back, too short to see the display.

“Hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide… Putrescine…”

“Bloody hell. Now I’m glad we’re wearing the suits.” somebody commented. “It must smell like shit out there.”

“Lovely…” the pilot muttered. “Guess I’m in for a treat when that ramp comes down.”

“Is there anywhere to set down upwind of the… area?”

“…Close enough. You mind walking a half mile or so?”

The consensus was that they didn’t, so the shuttle spun down to drop its passengers off on a rock that lunged up from among the trees, forming the point of a gentle slope down into the forest. Aside from a slightly intimidating dash down the ramp onto solid ground, it was an easy walk.

Down among the foliage, the damage was alarming. They were a good kilometer ahead of the apparent border of the damage that was visible from the air, but it was immediately obvious that the true leading edge of this landscape-eating sickness was far ahead of the yellowing and death. Every surface of every living thing was squalid with wet orange and off-white spots. The light filtering through the canopy borrowed a wretched hue from the infection, leaving the whole science team feeling filthy even inside their suits.

“Bacterial growths, Colin?”

Colin nodded, rubbing a leaf between two gloved fingers. It disintegrated. “They could well be. Grab a sample, I’ll try and culture them back at Folctha.”

"Those on the other hand." Mary said as the man with the sample bag produced a sterile tube and swab and set about collecting samples “are definitely fungal.”

She was referring to a mat of white fibers that had completely overrun one limb of a nearby tree.

“Don’t go near that.” Doctor Stevenson warned her, as she started to approach. When she turned and looked to him for an explanation, he dug a rock out of the soil and threw it at the branch. It cracked and a quarter-tonne of wood sagged on the trunk before crashing down.

Everyone on the team carefully stepped away from any overhanging limbs.

Samples gathered, they pressed onwards, and with each tree things seemed to get worse, but none of them were quite prepared for the abrupt change.

There was practically a line on the ground where living-but-infected plants gave way to dead, decomposing wreckage. In fact, there was a line, a meandering one as wide as a human forearm was long, and the colour of pus. Samples were gathered from that and from either side of it, and the air was captured for later analysis. A stream - presumably once bubbling and pretty but now more closely resembling the contents of a sewer, was likewise sampled, as was the putrefying carcass of another horse-sized animal.

Past that point, the damage almost seemed to play in a perverse kind of reverse. It wasn’t that there was anything alive and healthy beyond the wave edge of the disease, but the ground stopped slipping and squelching underfoot, the air became less heavy with spores and foulness. Eventually they reached the denuded heart of the scar, and found only bare soil, already starting to form a channel where the nightly rains were washing it away.

They sampled everything. Finally, as the sun was starting to set, they regrouped, and the important question was asked.

“Well?”

Mary looked around, at the rot, at the destruction, at the death, and at the river which was carrying the foulness who-knew how far away.

“Well… so much for Cimbrean.” she said.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 5d AV

Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Ava Rios

"AAAVAAA!!"

The cold light of flashlight between the trees, the sound of a voice she loved on the edge of fear.

It should have bothered her.

"AVA!!!“An older voice, a dear one. She loved him too.

She loved everyone! But especially Adam and Gabriel.

“Over here!”

“Oh, hey Sara.”

“Ava? Ava what’s up?”

The expression of worry on her face was kind of funny. Her own low and happy laughter sounded creepy even to Ava herself, and that just made her laugh more. “Oh, I’m great, I’m fiiine.” she promised. This didn’t seem to reassure Sara, which made her laugh again.

Crackling and snapping in the bushes, more cold unnatural light.

“Adam, baby! You wanna get married?”

“What… Ava, are you drunk?”

“Didn’t drink nothing, no sir.” she giggled.

“More like high.”

“Gabriel! Daddee-heehee!” she sang the word as it turned into another giggle. “I’m so lucky, two daddies in one lifetime. I’m a lucky girl.”

She didn’t understand the strange glances they exchanged. That was funny, but she was already giggling, so there wasn’t room for more.

“Come on Ava, let’s get you back to Folctha.”

“Ah come on, let’s go swimming again! I didn’t get to earlier. Look, I brought my swimsuit!”

“For Christ’s sake girl, put that back on!”

“Take it off, put it on, make up your mind!"

“Dad, I’ll… handle her. You’d better figure out what did this.”

“Aww, no handle… Adaaaam….”

She didn’t really fight him. She was too… tired.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 5d AV

HMS Caledonia, near the Gorai System

Captain Rajesh Bathini

Gaoian really did sound very much like Chinese. Not in the specific sounds, but in the general cadence and flow of the language, the way it sounded to a native English-speaker’s ear.

Having Gyotin on the bridge to take over the negotiations had proven to be the right choice. For all their supposed positive attitude towards humanity, it had been known for years that Gaoian politics was completely fractured, and unless you were speaking to a female, you had no direct line to anything resembling a unified government. Evidently, there were factions within the military who regarded the “deathworlders” as a serious threat even in the face of the most overt peaceful overtures that Bathini could muster.

Not so different from home then, really. If the Gaoian language reminded him of the Chinese, then so too did their commander’s attitude.

“Fleetmaster” he interjected, using the title that the translator and Gyotin both had given. “It was my understanding that our species have, so far in these past short years, enjoyed a good relationship. I don’t see why I would want to break that trust now, nor why… or even how we would do so like this.”

“It is thanks to your species that Hunter attacks on our outposts and shipping have increased.” the snow-muzzled, aging Fleetmaster snapped at him. “I am tasked with safeguarding my people from all threats, and collaboration with your species seems to me to be a certain invitation to further retribution from those monsters.”

‘We are going to have to do something about that bad image’ Bathini thought to himself, as he picked his next words carefully.

“The Hunters have failed against the humans almost every time.” Gyotin said, before Bathini could finish assembling a sentence. “If your motive is fear, old Father, then these here are the species to be more afraid of.”

He showed his teeth, which was apparently not a friendly gesture in Gaoian body language. “Not to mention the ones less likely to eat you." he added.

“Trying to intimidate me on their behalf, pup?” the fleetmaster snarled, but he didn’t fool Bathini. Gyotin had scored a hit, even the old Gaoian wasn’t quite wiley enough to hide it.

“Am I? I don’t find facts very intimidating, whitesnout." Gyotin retorted, calmly matching the insult with one of his own.

“How dare-!” the fleetmaster began to object. Gyotin actually leapt forward and made a furous yipping noise toward his senior’s projection.

“Senile! Blind!” he snapped. “So afraid of today that he’ll quiver under a rock to save his hide and let cubs die tomorrow!”

Bathini leaned forward to whisper in his Gaoian’s pointed ear. "Gyotin, are you sure this is…?" he began, but he could see glances in the background behind the fleetmaster.

As abruptly as it had begun, the conversation ended as the furious Father cut the link.

The tension of the ensuing pause lasted two whole cups of tea before finally a hail from the lead Gaoian ship came through.

This time, the figure on screen was a different Gaoian, obviously junior to the fleetmaster, but not by much. Of the fleetmaster himself, there was no sign.

"Caledonia, you have permission to enter the Gorai system under our escort." he declared. “Do not deviate from your assigned path or power your weapons or shields.”

Bathini raised an eyebrow at Gyotin who, alien body language be damned, was obviously feeling very pleased with himself.

“We understand and obey.” he replied, calmly. “Thank you.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 6d AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches

Gabriel Ares

“Okay, thanks for coming, we’re sorry for the short notice of this Thing, but this is important."

Gabriel Ares stood up and held up the unadorned Aluminium rod that marked him as the speaker for now, both it and the silver shield badge of the colonial police on his jacket shone in the blue morning sunlight.

“First, as you’ve all probably heard, I can confirm that one of the children was evacuated back to Earth last night with a case of poisoning.” He began. “We’ve just received word from Scotch Creek that she’s made a full recovery, and while they plan on keeping her under observation for safety’s sake over the next couple of days, she should be returning with the next group of colonists.”

There was a general relieved sigh and some muttering. Ava was popular, especially among the regulars at the Faith Center. Concern had been flickering around Folctha like lightning in a mountain storm all morning. Gabriel held up the speaker’s stick a little higher to quiet them down.

“We’ve identified the plant that poisoned her. Cimbreaner Simiscamellia Delanii, the Cimbrean Tea plant. The young shoots seem to have a potent drug effect when chewed raw. We need to know if anybody else has been using these plants recreationally."

Chatter erupted, and Gabriel banged his walking stick down a few times to restore silence. “I want to make it perfectly clear that nobody is in trouble." he raised his voice. “The matter of whether or not we should be treating that tea as an illegal narcotic is a subject for a future Thing, but for now we need to know if anybody’s been using it to get high so we can make sure they’ve not harmed their liver function or anything."

After a little more chatter, a handful of people stepped forward. The Tisdales, he was unsurprised to note, were among them.

“Right. Sorry folks, but you’re all going back to Earth for a day or two. We don’t have the facilities here to properly test or treat you. Hayley, Mark, your kids can go with you, or they can sleep round my place.”

The Thing cleared up rapidly after that. The Tisdales agreed to let Sara and Jack stay with Gabriel, there were a few questions which Gabriel deftly put off until next time, before finally retiring to let the colony finish discussing it on their own while he retired to his office.

In privacy, he ran his hands through his hair and swore softly. It was still hard to believe that Ava, of all people, had been so stupid.

He was beginning to doubt his own parenting decisions.

Date Point: 4y 8m 2w 6d AV

The Grand Conclave, Hunter Space

Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds

The Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds could feel its maw watering.

To be a Hunter was to Hunt. The need for it was programmed into their genetic essence, playing even a critical role in their reproduction. A Hunter was only fertile within the few days after a successful hunt, at which point, if so ordered by its Alpha, it might go into a reproductive trance and willingly enter the spawning pools.

There, it’s own young would devour it from within. Small and agile little swimmers with little to their name but sharp teeth would burst in a bloody froth from the disintegrating corpse of their parent, leaving only clean bones and cybernetics to sink to the bottom of the pool.

Over the coming months, live prey-slaves would periodically be thrown in, to be ripped apart in a feeding frenzy by the increasingly mature Hunter young, until they were finally developed enough to haul themselves out of the pool and be escorted away to receive their first implants and join the ranks, to have knowledge and skills force-fed into their brains via cybernetic data shunts, joining the brood of their parent.

The exception were the Brood-That-Builds.

Where a “normal” hunter’s eyes were solid black or red, those of the Brood- That-Builds were identifiable from the moment they clambered from the spawning waters by their green eyes with the distinctive zig-zap pupils. They held themselves slightly differently, their craniums were that little bit larger, their natural claws absent, their endoskeletal structure that little bit better suited for heavy lifting and carrying than for combat.

They were the largest Brood by dint of being swelled by the breeding of every other Brood, as well as their own spawnings, but to the Brood-That-Builds, a successful hunt was something very different.

To them, an engineer’s obsession with problem-solving was as natural as breath and feeding. In their instincts, “prey” was an outstanding unresolved technical challenge, and the “hunt” was a solution to that challenge. To the Brood-That-Builds, installing an ingenious sewerage system was on par with raiding a prey-freighter. Deploying an orbiting array of energy collectors to within millimeter tolerances was rewarded with an ecstasy that other Hunters could only find in the flesh of Humans.

And now, this! The prey of a lifetime, actual sensor records of a Human starship in action, fighting in ways that defied immediate comprehension. A quarry without compare!

The Alpha knew that if it succeeded at this task, it would have to spawn afterwards. The urge would be far too powerful, the pheromones and hormones of its deadly birthing would produce strong Hunters, the finest minds ever seen by the Brood-That-Builds. It relished and anticipated the thought.

The Alpha-of-Alphas was in an indulgent mood, but there were limits. <Impatience; demand> +Can you learn their secrets?+ it demanded.

<Confidence; gratitude> +The Alpha-of-Alphas has given me a fine prey to chase. But whatever solution the primitive deathworld beasts can invent, I can invent also. These secrets will be yours.+ The Alpha Builder replied.

<Query> +And how long would it take to introduce this technology to our brood-vessels?+

<Thoughtful estimation> +That would depend on the nature of the technology, and how much of the Swarm would be thus outfitted+

<Clarification> +The entire Swarm-of-Swarms. Every last ship. This technology allows the Deathworlders to slip their cage and turn it into a wall against us. We will now devote all of our efforts into penetrating their fortress and butchering every last one.+

<Surprise; timid objection> +Greatest One, even if the secret turns out to be trivial, that will take (years).+

<Anger> +Your place is not to object! Your place is to OBEY!+

The Alpha Builder cowered as the Alpha-of-Alphas rose from its Vulza-skull throne and spread its cybernetic claws.

<Placation; Obedience> +It shall be as the Alpha-of-Alpha commands.+ It mentally squeaked.

<Satisfaction> +Good. Get to work.+

The Alpha-of-Alphas paused as the Alpha Builder scurried away. <Threat> +Understand something, Alpha of the Brood-That-Builds.+ It fixed the lesser Alpha with a stern glare from all seven of its eyes. +If you reproduce before every last human has been devoured, then I shall personally filter your spawn from their pool and have them fed to the spawn of another.+

The Alpha Builder swallowed, a subconscious gesture that, unbeknownst to either species, exactly mirrored its meaning in humans. <Fearful Understanding> it sent, and scurried away.

Suddenly, this new prey seemed so much less exciting to it.

__

Date Point: 4y 8m 3w AV

Austin, Texas. United States of America, Earth.

Kevin Jenkins

“Uh… hey. Is, uh, Moira home?”

The man in the door looked him up and down. “If your name’s Kevin” he decided “She ain’t.”

Kevin sighed, and nodded gently. “It is, yeah.”

Anger flashed in the other man’s eyes. “In that case pal, your restraining order-”

“I’ve got this, baby.”

Moira kissed the man in the door on the cheek, and after a quick check to make sure she was certain, he retreated inside. Moira leaned on the door frame.

“He’s right. That restraining order ain’t gone away.” She said.

“I know.”

“Why are you here, Kevin? I thought you were going to leave us in peace.”

“I thought… I was hoping maybe I could try and un-fuckup one thing.” Kevin said.

“What, you’re here to apologise?”

Kevin shook his head. “You and I both know there’s not enough sorry in the world, Moira. Not after what I…” the sentence trailed off. Even know, in the act of cleansing himself, he couldn’t bear to repeat what his own irresponsibility had done to Callie.

“You’re fucking right.” she snarled, advancing out of the house. “She’s inside. God willing, even if she looks out here, she won’t remember who you are. How dare you come here?!"

“I’m not staying.” he reassured. “Just… I know I can’t see her, Moira, but I have to apologise to her."

“You’re not seeing her!”

“I know,” Kevin repeated. “Look… I’ve got this letter. You read it, you decide whether to give it to her. You can burn it if you want, but I can’t leave without at least trying.”

“Leave?” she asked suspiciously, snatching the letter from his hand. “You came back just to leave again?”

“Earth. I’m leaving Earth. I got a job with the Byron Group, on one of their exploration ships, and I’m leaving. Forever.”

Date Point: 4y 8m 3w AV

Folctha Colony, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches.

Dr. Mary Cleveland

“…Peptostreptococcus magnus… that’s definitely E. coli, no two ways about it… and… yep, I’d bet my life on it, that’s Enterococcus faecium. Well, that clinches it."

Governor Sandy was no scientist, but he was a highly educated, highly literate man. “Faecium? As in, faeces.” he said.

“Oh yes. These are all Terran species of bacteria, every one of them native to the human gastrointestinal tract.” Dr. Cleveland said, still examining the images being produced by the electron microscope.

“As are the fungi we recovered.” his wife added.

Coin nodded “It’s… aside from the scale, it’s a pretty classic cross-section of the kind of flora you’d find in an ordinary, healthy bowel movement.”

Sandy grimaced, and pinched his nose. “Delaney.” he said.

“Must be. The scar describes pretty much perfectly the direct route from the site of her escape pod to here. If we assume one comfort break a day or so…”

“Even one would have done it.” Mary said. “You can’t blame her, governor.”

“I don’t.” He reassured her. “Is there anything we can do?”

Mary sighed. “I suspect something like this would have eventually happened anyway.” she said. “In the absence of any bacterivores or immune systems capable of keeping them in check, the bacteria and fungi are feasting and reproducing as fast as they possibly can. Deathworld microbes, loose in an ecosystem that simply can’t cope. This was never not going to happen, from the moment a human first landed here."

Sir Jeremy listened to her patiently. “I thought the disease suppression implants…?” he said.

“Those rid us of a whole raft of communicable diseases based on the case of one human who managed to infect a whole ship full of vizkittiks. They’re actually targeted at a fairly short list of bugs.” Colin shook his head. “They ignore our gut microbiome by design: If they completely sterilized the human digestive tract, it’d probably kill us.”

Sir Jeremy made an exasperated noise. “Bloody…. sloppy half-baked alien solutions.” he cursed. “Very well. Is there any way we can stop this thing?”

Wendy shook her head and gave him the hard truth. “Almost certainly not, now that it’s so advanced.” she said, apologetically. “I’m sorry, Sir Jeremy, but all of our noble goals toward conserving the ecology of this planet were doomed before we even got here.”

“…Shit.”

Coming from a man who was not known to swear, this prompted a round of sympathetic nodding. Sir Jeremy had been passionate from the word go about preserving Cimbrean’s native life, and certainly nobody in the colony disagreed with him on that endeavour.

He wiped away a futile tear. “Fine. is there anything we CAN do?”

Colin and Mary exchanged glances. “This… the death of a whole planetary biosphere isn’t exactly our field.” Colin demurred.

“Is it anybody’s?”

“I suppose not.” Colin frowned, thinking.

“The knock-on consequences are total.” Mary said. “No plants means no oxygen. So, we’re on borrowed time now before Cimbrean ceases to be an inhabitable planet.”

Good husband that he was, Colin was on the same wavelength instantly. “And if there’s nothing we can do to stop them from dying, then the only option is to replace them.”

“And the only readily available plants which could survive in soil contaminated with Terran microorganisms would be… well, Terran ones.” Wendy finished.

“You’re proposing a… what, an ecosystem transplant? That sounds like an impossibly large task.”

“Vast.” Colin agreed. “But it’s either that or abandon this planet and watch it die.”

“We’d need to bring in… everything." Mary said. “Trees, grass, bushes, bees, birds, insects, rodents, birds, fungi, algae, fish, everything all the way up to apex predators.”

“Impossible, surely?” Sir Jeremy protested. “Replacing the ecosystem of an entire planet, that’s… far too large a task."

“But we don’t need to replace it across the whole planet at first.” Colin pointed out. “If the aliens are right about Deathworld species, and the evidence of this bacterial event suggests that they are…"

Mary nodded “…then we only need to introduce the immigrant species along the length of the scar. They might even help to contain the infection and slow it, if we introduced things in the right order.”

Colin nodded. “Of course, the Terran species would ultimately out-compete and supplant the natives, but if we’re very lucky, a few mutant strains might make it through the mass extinction events and we’d still have a few Cimbrean natives for posterity.”

“Is that feasible?”

The Clevelands looked at each other, back to him and, simultaneously, they shrugged. “We’re not remotely qualified to plan more than a tiny part of that process.” Mary said.

“It’s the precise opposite of what I came to Cimbrean to achieve.” Sir Jeremy objected, though it was at best a defeated token objection rather than a serious dissent.

“She’s already terminally ill.” Colin replied. “She either becomes barren and uninhabitable, or we terraform her. Those are the only options I can see.” He glanced at Mary, who nodded her agreement.

Sir Jeremy sat down, took off his glasses and cleaned them on his tie. “Is this likely to happen wherever we go?” he asked.

“Well…” Colin cleared his throat. His expression confirmed that the answer was an affirmative, and that he really didn’t want to say it.

Wendy finished for him. “They do call us ‘deathworlders’.” She said, and pointed at Firebird’s image of the Scar as the governor put his glasses back on.

“Well… There’s the proof.”